. 


AUBREY  DRURY 


1074 
68 

18  S3 


A    BREEZE 


FROM 


THE    WOODS 


BY 


W.  C.    BART  LETT 


SECOND  EDITION. 

THE  CALIFORNIA  PU BUSHING  COMPANY 
1883 


OAKLAND   TRIBUNE  PRINT. 


TO 


A.   K.   P.   HARMON,  ESQ., 


THE  LIBERAL    CITIZEN,  GENIAL    NEIGHBOR,  AND 


STEADFAST    FRIEND. 


NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


The  greater  number  of  the  papers  comprised  in 
this  volume  were  originally  contributed  to  the  Over 
land  Monthly,  and  nearly  in  the  order  in  which  they 
now  appear.  Two  essays,  written  at  later  dates,  were 
printed  in  the  Calif ornian.  The  final  paper  of  the 
series  only,  has  been  slightly  abridged.  It  was  origin 
ally  prepared  as  a  platform  address,  and  still  retains 
that  distinctive  character. 

If  these  pages  disclose  more  of  the  freedom  of  out 
door  life  than  the  philosophy  born  of  private  medita 
tion,  it  is  because  the  author  loves  the  woods  better 
than  the  town;  the  garden  better  than  the  low  diet 
and  high  thinking  of  any  philosopher  (who  goes  above 
the  clouds) ;  and  the  friendships  which  have  ripened 
under  genial  skies,  better  than  all. 

THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL. 
January,  1883. 


CONTENTS. 


Page. 

/.  A  BREEZE  FROM  THE    WOODS,     ...        9 

//.  LOCU8TS  AND  WILD  HONEY,    ....      37 

III.  A   WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO, 53 

I V,  UNDER  A  MADRONO 77 

V.     A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS 05 

VI.  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA,    .   ..     .     .     .     113 

VII.  THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL,       .     ...     135 

VIII.  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL,     .     ...     159 

IX.  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA,     .     .     .     191 

X.  SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS,     ......     213 

XL  LITERATURE  AND  ART,                                 229 


A    BREEZE    FROM    THE  WOODS. 


"SHALL  we  go  to  the  Springs  this  year?"  asked  a 
demure  woman  as  she  handed  the  tea  and  toast  across 
the  table. 

Now  there  are  more  than  five  thousand  springs  in 
the  Coast  Range  which  have  never  been  defiled.  It 
isn't  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  one's  mortal 
system  that  it  should  be  daily  saturated  with  a  strong 
solution  of  potash  or  sulphur.  As  a  pickle,  I  much 
prefer  a  few  gallons  dipped  up  from  the  ocean,  or  a 
spring  bath  from  a  little  mountain  stream.  Do  you 
think  it  is  evidence  of  insanity  in  a  hungry  man  to 
expect  a  wholesome  dinner  in  a  country  hotel  kept 
expressly  for  city  boarders?  We  will  have  a  vacation 
nevertheless.  If  our  homes  were  in  Paradise,  I  think 
we  should  need  it.  One  might  get  tired  even  of 
looking  at  sapphire  walls  and  golden  pavements.  Did 
you  observe  how  promptly  that  artisan  dropped  his 
tools  when  he  heard  the  mid-day  warning?  Many  a 


io      A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

man  gets  more  than  one  significant  warning  to  drop 
his  tools — all  his  instruments  of  handicraft  and  brain 
work — at  midsummer  and  be  off.  If  he  does  not 
heed  this  protest  of  nature,  there  will  come  a  day 
when  the  right  hand  will  lose  its  cunning  and  the 
brain  its  best  fibre.  It  is  better  to  sit  down  wearily 
under  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  and  take  a  new 
baptism  from  the  ooze  and  drip,  than  to  trudge  on  as  a 
money-making  pilgrim  up  the  bald  mountain,  because 
forsooth  some  men  have  reached  it  at  mid-day — and 
found  nothing.  What  we  need  is  not  so  much  to  seek 
something  better  in  the  long  run  than  we  have  found. 
There  may  be  a  sweet,  even  throb  to  all  the  pulsations 
of  domestic  life,  and  no  small  comfort  in  gown  and 
slippers,  and  the  unfolding  of  the  damp  evening  news 
paper.  But  the  heaven,  of  what  sort  it  is,  may  seem  a 
little  fresher  by  leaving  it  for  a  month's  airing.  It  is 
a  point  gained  to  break  away  from  these  old  conditions 
and  to  go  forth  somewhat  from  one's  self.  The  lobster 
breaks  his  shell  and  next  time  takes  on  a  larger  one. 
He  is  a  better  lobster  for  that  one  habit  of  his.  The 
trouble  with  many  men  is  that  they  never  have  but 
one  shell,  and  have  never  expanded  enough  to  fill 
that.  They  do  not  need  a  vacation,  when  the  beginning 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.      n 

and  end  of  them  is  vacuity.  It  is  possible  that  the 
horizon  may  shut  down  too  closely  about  one  and  be 
too  brazen  withal;  and  that  as  we  go  the  weary  round 
the  cycle  of  our  own  thoughts  will  be  finished  with 
every  revolution  of  the  earth.  There  is  no  great 
difference  after  all  in  a  desert  of  sand  and  a  desert  of 
houses,  when  both  by  a  law  of  association  suggest 
eternal  sameness  and  barrenness.  There  is  a  weari 
some  sameness  in  this  human  current  which  is  shot 
through  the  narrow  grooves  of  the  great  city.  What 
inspiration  does  one  get  from  this  human  concussion  ? 
Are  there  any  sparks  of  divine  fire  struck  off,  or  struck 
into  a  man  by  it?  In  all  this  jostling  crowd  is  there 
any  prophet  who  knows  certainly  what  his  dinner  shall 
be  on  the  morrow?  The  struggle  is  mainly  one  for 
beef  and  pudding,  with  some  show  of  fine  raiment, 
and  possibly  a  clapboard  house  in  which  there  is  no 
end  to  stucco.  The  smallest  fraction  may  yet  be  used 
to  express  the  value  of  that  element  of  civilization 
which  teaches  society  how  much  it  needs  rather  than 
how  little  will  suffice. 

Argenti,  the  banker,  fared  sumptuously  every  day. 
But  you  notice  that  he  had  the  gout  cruelly.  You 
didn't  find  him  at  any  fashionable  watering-place  last 


12  A  BREEZE  FROM  THE   WOODS. 

summer.  His  pavilion  vwas  under  an  oak  tree,  with 
the  padding  of  a  pair  of  blankets.  His  meat  and 
drink  for  six  weeks  were  broiled  venison  and  spring 
water.  What  his  rifle  did  not  procure  and  the  spring 
supply,  he  utterly  refused  to  swallow.  He  went  up  the 
mountain-side  with  muffled  feet  and  a  vexed  spirit. 
He  came  down  per  saltern  singing  something  about 
the  soul  of  one  Brown,  which  he  said  was  marching 
on.  It  is  not  necessary  that  our  modern  pulpiteers 
should  go  back  to  the  diet  of  locusts  and  wild  honey. 
But  there  is  comfortable  assurance  that  there  is  no 
gout  in  that  fare.  And  if  more  of  naturalness  and  fiery 
earnestness  would  come  of  that  way  of  living,  it  might 
be  worth  the  trial.  There  is  fullness  of  meat  and 
drink,  and  much  leanness  of  soul.  It  only  needs  some 
manifestation  of  individuality,  with  an  honest  sim 
plicity,  to  suggest  a  commission  of  lunacy. 

"This,"  said  the  divinity  who  served  the  toast  and 
tea,  "is  your  vacation  philosophy.  How  much  of  it 
are  you  going  to  reduce  to  practice?" 

As  much  as  we  can  crowd  into  three  weeks,  or  more 
of  rational  living.  There  might  be  a  charm  in  savage 
life  if  it  were  not  for  the  fearfully  white  teeth  of  the 
wolf  and  the  cannibal.  There  is  nothing  in  Blot's 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE   WOODS.  13 

book   which    teaches    how   a   missionary    should    be 
cooked;    and   a  roast  pig,   that  pleasant  adjunct,  is 
only  well  done  by  the  Fiji  Islanders.     And  so,  after 
some  further  discussion,  oracular  and  otherwise,  it  was 
agreed  that  precedents  should  go  for  nothing;  and 
that  the  vacation  of  three  weeks  should  be  spent  with 
a  rational  regard  for  health,  economy  and  pleasure. 
Ourselves,   including  a  half-grown   boy,  would  count 
three,  and  our  neighbors — husband  and  wife — would 
make   up   the   convenient   number   of   five.     It  was 
agreed,  moreover,  that  we  should  not  enter  a  hotel, 
nor  accept  any  private  hospitality  which  included  in 
door  lodging.      No  journey  for  the  benefit  of  baggage 
smashers.     No  more  notable  incident  will  happen  on 
this  part  of  the  planet,  for  some  time  to  come,  than 
the  fact  that  two  females,  not  averse  to  a  fresh  ribbon 
in  spring-time,  consented  to  a  journey  of  three  weeks 
without  taking  along  a  trunk  of  the  size  of  a  Swiss 
cottage,  or  so  much  as  a  single  bandbox;     Railroads, 
steamboats  and  stages  were  to  be  given  over,  as  things 
wholly  reprobate.      There  happened  to  be  on  the  farm 
of  one  of  the  party  three  half-breed  horses,  well  broken 
to  harness  and  saddle.     These,  with  a  light,  covered 
spring  wagon,  should  suffice  for  all  purposes  of  loco- 


14      A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

motion — a  single  span  before  the  wagon,  and  the  third 
horse  with  a  saddle,  to  admit  of  an  occasional  change. 
The  half-breed  horses,  which  would  not  sell  in  the 
market  for  fifty  dollars  each,  are  the  best  in  the  world 
for  such  a  campaign.  They  never  stumble,  are  not 
frightened  at  a  bit  of  bad  road;  under  the  saddle  they 
will  pick  their  own  way,  jumping  over  a  log  or  a  small 
stream  with  the  nimbleness  of  a  deer.  A  tether  on 
the  grass  at  night  keeps  them  in  good  trim.  Bred  in 
the  country,  they  are  the  proper  equine  companions 
with  which  to  plunge  into  the  forest  and  to  go  over 
unfrequented  roads.  They  have  an  instinct  which  is 
marvelously  acute.  They  will  take  the  scent  of  a 
grizzly  in  the  night  sooner  than  the  best  trained  dog, 
and  are  quite  as  courageous;  for  both  dog  and  horse 
will  break  for  camp  at  the  first  sniff  of  one  of  these 
monsters.  When  stage  horses  start  on  a  tearing  run 
over  a  mountain  road  at  midnight,  look  for  bear 
tracks  in  the  morning.  It  is  but  fair  to  say  that  Bruin 
does  not  generally  meddle  with  people  who  are  not  of 
a  meddlesome  turn  of  mind.  When  put  upon  his 
mettle,  he  goes  in  for  a  square  fight;  and  as  far  as  my 
scanty  data  may  be  relied  upon,  he  whips  in  a  majority 
of  instances.  A  Henry  rifle,  two  shot-guns,  a  small 


A   BFEEZE  FROM  THE   WOODS.  15 

military  tent,  some  heavy  blankets,  and  a  good  supply 
of  fishing-tackle,  with  two  or  three  cooking  utensils 
and  some  small  stores,  made  up  the  equipment.  No 
wonder-mongering  was  to  be  done.  It  was  not  in 
order,  therefore,  to  go  to  the  Big  Trees,  Yosemite  or 
the  Geysers.  There  are  more  wonders  on  a  square 
mile  of  the  Coast  Range  than  most  of  us  know 
anything  about. 

No  vacation  is  worth  having  which  does  not, 
abruptly  if  need  be,  turn  one  away  from  all  familiar 
sights  and  sounds — all  the  jarring,  creaking  and  abra 
sion  of  city  life.  The  opening  vista  in  the  redwood 
forest,  where  the  path  is  flecked  with  tremulous 
shadows  and  gleams  of  sunlight,  will  lead  near  enough 
to  Paradise,  provided  one  does  not  take  a  book  or  a 
newspaper  along,  and  never  blasphemes  against  nature 
by  inquiring  the  price  of  stocks.  The  young  lady 
who  undertook  to  read  Byron  at  the  Geysers  last 
summer,  was  greeted  with  an  angry  hiss  of  steam 
which  made  her  sitting  place  very  uncomfortable. 
There  was  but  one  snatch  of  Norma  sung  during  this 
excursion.  Something  was  said  about  its  being  sung 
"divinely;"  but  the  fact  that  every  gray  squirrel  barked, 
and  every  magpie  chattered  within  the  space  of  forty 


1 6      A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

i 

furlongs,  left  a  lingering  doubt  about  the  heavenliness 
of  that  particular  strain  of  music.  It  is  useless  to 
mock  at  nature,  for  in  the  end  she  will  make  all  true 
souls  ashamed.  An  excursion  into  the  woods  calls 
for  some  faith  in  Providence,  and  some  also  in  rifles 
and  fishing  gear;  and  when  dinner  depends  upon 
some  sort  of  game  which  is  flying  over  head,  or 
running  in  the  bushes,  one  must  walk  circumspectly 
withal,  and  remember  to  keep  the  eye  of  faith  wide 
open.  It  is  of  no  use  to  cite  the  instance  of  the 
prophet  who  was  fed  by  ravens.  He  had  a  fit  of  the 
blues,  and  could  not  have  drawn  a  bead  upon  a  rifle. 
Besides,  if  he  knew  that  game  was  coming  to  him, 
what  was  the  use  of  going  after  it? 

Here  and  there  a  pair  of  doves  were  flitting  about, 
and  now  and  then  a  cotton-tail  rabbit  made  an  awkward 
jump  from  one  clump  of  bushes  to  another.  It  was  a 
handsome  beginning  for  the  youngster,  who  sent  a 
stone  into  the  hazel-bush  and  took  bunny  on  the  keen 
jump  as  he  came  out.  It  was  a  sign  that  there  would 
be  no  famine  in  the  wilderness.  Another  brace  of 
rabbits  and  half  a  dozen  wild  doves  settled  the  dinner 
question.  Wild  game  needs  to  be  hung  up  for  a 
season  to  mellow;  the  quail  does  not  improve  in  this 


A   BREEZE  FROM  THE   WOODS.  17 

way,  but  pigeons  and  wild  ducks  and  venison  are 
vastly  better  for  it.  A  trout  affords  an  excellent 
mountain  lunch,  and  the  sooner  he  is  eaten  after 
coming  out  of  the  water  the  better.  And  so  of  all 
the  best  game  fish. 

Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  while  women  may  be 
skillful  fishers  of  men,  and  will  even  make  them  bite 
at  the  bare  hook,  they  make  the  poorest  trout  fishers 
in  the  world?  There  is  an  awkward  fling  of  the  line, 
as  if  the  first  purpose  was  to  scare  every  fish  out  of 
the  water.  There  is  a  great  doubt  if  any  trout  of  the 
old  school  ever  takes  a  bait  thrown  in  by  feminine 
hands;  if  indeed  he  is  tempted  into  taking  it,  he 
makes  off  with  it,  and  that  is  the  last  sign  of  him  for 
that  day.  That  last  remark  is  uttered  at  some  peril,  if 
the  most  vehement  feminine  protest  means  anything 
serious.  Two  speckled  fellows  were  taken  from  a  little 
pool  under  a  bridge,  the  most  unlikely  place  in  the 
world,  according  to  common  observation,  and  yet 
chosen  by  the  trout  because  some  sort  of  food  is 
shaken  down  through  the  bridge  at  every  crossing  of 
a  vehicle.  Two  more  from  a  pool  above,  and  there 
were  enough  for  lunch.  There  may  be  sport  in  taking 
life  thus.  But  who  ever  puts  the  smallest  life  out  in 


1 8      A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

mere  wantonness,  and  for  the  sport  of  slaying,  without 
reference  to  a  human  want,  is  a  barbarian.       These 
carnivorous  teeth  show  that  we  are  creatures  of  prey. 
But  conscience  ought  to  be 'the  Lord's  game-keeper, 
and  give  an  unmistakable  warning  when  we  have  slain 
enough.     Had  there  been  a  mission  to  shed  innocent 
blood  for  the  love  of  it,  a  couple  of  wild  cats  which 
were  traveling  along  a  narrow  trail,  with  the  ugliest 
faces  ever  put  upon  any  of  the  feline  tribe,  would  have 
come  to  grief.      Their  short,   stumpy   tails  and  bad 
countenances  came  near  drawing  the  fire  of  one  of  the 
pieces.     But  although  wild  game  is  better  than  tame 
meat,  there  is  no  evidence  on  record  that  a  wild  cat  is. 
any  better  than  a  tame  one.     They  only  needed  hand 
some  tails  to  have  been  taken  for  half-grown  tigers.    If 
every  creature  with  an  unlovely  countenance  is  to  be 
put  to  death  on  that  account,  what  would  become  of 
some  men  and  women  who  are  not  particularly  angelic? 
The  pussies  are  out  for  their  dinner,  and  so  are  we. 
We  cannot  eat  them,  and  they  must  not  eat  us.     Each 
of  them  may  feast  on  a  brace  of  song-birds   before 
night.   But  it  may  be  assumed  that  each  of  the  females 
who  make  up  the  party  are  competent  to  make  way 
with  a  brace  of  innocent  doves  for  dinner. 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.      19 

If  it  were  not  for  the  fox,  the  wild-cat  and  the  hawk, 
the  quail  is  so  wonderfully  prolific  here  that  it  would 
overrun  the  country,  destroying  vineyards  and  grain 
fields  without  limit.  I  suspect,  also,  that  the  great 
hooded  owl  drops  down  from  his  perch  at  night,  and 
regales  himself  on  young  quails,  whose  nightly  covert 
he  knows  as  well  as  any  bird  in  the  woods.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  find  out  what  the  owl  eats,  but  does  anybody 
know  who  eats  the  owl?  You  may  criticise  him  as  a 
singing  bird,  and  he  is  rather  monotonous  along  in  the 
small  hours  of  the  morning.  But  worse  music  than 
that  may  be  heard  in-doors,  and  not  half  so  impressive, 
withal.  There  is  no  harm  in  noting  that  the  two  or 
three  attempts  to  sing  "Sweet  Home"  by  the  camp- 
fire  on  the  first  night  were  failures.  At  the  time  when 
the  tears  should  have  started,  there  was  a  break  and  a 
laugh  which  echoed  far  up  in  the  ravine.  Nobody 
had  lost  a  home,  but  five  happy  mortals  had  found 
one,  the  roof  of  which  was  of  emerald,  supported  by 
great  pillars  of  redwood,  which  cast  their  shadow  far 
out  in  the  wilderness,  as  the  flames  shot  up  from  the 
camp-fire.  The  game  supper  was  no  failure.  One  only 
needs  to  throw  overboard  two-thirds  of  the  modern 
appliances  of  the  kitchen,  including  the  cast-iron 


20      A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

stove — that  diabolical  invention  of  modern  times — 
to  insure  perfect  success  in  the  simple  business  of 
cooking  a  dinner.  Do  not,  good  friends,  forget  the 
currant  jelly,  or  you  may  weary  of  doves  and  cotton 
tails,  as  the  Israelites  did  of  quails  and  manna.  And 
if  you  want  the  elixir  of  life,  make  the  tea  of  soft 
spring  water,  which  you  will  never  find  issuing  out  of 
any  limestone  or  chalk  rock,  or  where  flints  much 
abound. 

The  little  white  tent  had  a  weird  aspect,  as  though 
it  might  have  been  a  ghost  in  the  forest.  It  was 
absurdly  intrusive,  and  harmonized  with  nothing  in 
the  woods  or  foreground  save  the  white  wall  of  mist 
that  every  night  trended  landward  from  the  ocean, 
but  never  touched  the  shore.  After  a  little  time  the 
novelty  of  the  camp  wears  off,  and  a  blessed  peace 
comes  down  on  weary  eyes  and  souls.  There  is  no 
use  in  keeping  one  eye  open  because  a  dry  stick  cracks 
now  and  then,  or  the  night-hawk  sputters  as  he  goes 
by.  Daylight  comes  at  four  o'clock,  and  the  woods 
are  thronged  with  animal  life.  The  song-sparrow 
begins  to  twitter,  finches  and  linnets  hop  about;  and 
down  in  the  oaks  the  robins  sing,  and  the  wood 
peckers  are  tapping  the  dry  limbs  overhead.  The 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.      21 

gray  squirrel  arches  his  handsome  tail  and  runs  along 
in  merry  glee;  and  there  is  such  a  wealth  and  joy  of 
abounding  life — such  a  sweet  concord  of  sounds  and 
brimming  over  of  gladness — that  Heaven  seems  a  little 
nearer  for  the  morning  anthem.  But  a  heavenly  state 
is  not  inconsistent  with  a  reasonable  appetite. 

Never  did  trout  bite  more  ravenously  than  at  sunrise 
that  morning.  The  shadows  were  on  the  pools,  and 
the  gamey  fellows  more  than  once  jumped  clear  out  of 
the  water  for  an  early  breakfast.  In  losing  theirs,  we 
got  our  own.  In  the  long  run,  the  losses  and  gains 
may  be  nicely  balanced.  Mem. :  It  is  far  better  that 
the  trout  should  be  losers  at  present.  The  philosophy 
may  be  fishy,  but  it  points  towards  a  good  humanizing 
breakfast.  And  it  cannot  have  escaped  notice,  that 
the  greater  part  of  that  philosophy  which  the  world  is 
in  no  hurry  to  crucify  points  towards  the  dinner-table. 

Did  it  ever  strike  you  that  the  asceticism  of  the 
middle  ages,  which  retreated  to  the  cloister  content 
with  water-cresses  as  a  bill  of  fare,  was  never  very 
fruitful  of  high  and  profound  discourse?  The  phil 
osopher  who  goes  up  into  the  clouds  to  talk,  and 
prefers  gruel  to  trout  before  going,  makes  an  epigastric 
mistake.  He  has  taken  in  the  wrong  ballast;  and  has 


22  A   BREEZE  FROM  THE   WOODS. 

omitted  some  good  phosphorescent  material,  which 
might  have  created  a  nimbus  around  his  head  as  he 
entered  the  clouds.  A  mistake  in  the  gastric  region 
leads  to  errors  of  the  head  and  heart.  I  do  not 
know  whether  there  is  any  ground  of  hope  for  a  people 
who  have  not  only  invented  cast-iron  stoves,  but  have 
invented  "help"  in  the  form  of  the  she-Titans  who 
have  made  a  wholesome  dinner  well-nigh  impossible. 
Death  on  a  pale  horse  is  poetical  enough.  But  death 
in  the  black  stove  of  many  a  kitchen  is  terribly  realistic. 
If  these  trout  were  to  be  cooked  by  "hireling  hands," 
the  very  woods  would  be  desecrated,  and  the  smoke 
of  the  sacrifice  would  be  an  abomination. 

Does  a  brook  trout  ever  become  a  salmon  trout? 
But  the  former  goes  down  to  the  sea,  and  comes  back 
the  next  year  a  larger  fish.  He  ascends  the  same 
stream,  and  may  be  a  foot  or  more  in  length,  according 
to  the  size  of  the  stream.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  those 
Coast  Range  streams  which  communicate  with  the 
ocean.  If  a  bar  or  lagoon  is  formed  at  the  mouth  of 
a  stream,  so  that  it  is  closed  for  a  few  months,  and 
nearly  all  the  fish  are  taken  out  by  the  hook,  on  the 
opening  of  the  lagoon  or  creek  a  fresh  supply  of  trout 
will  come  in  from  the  ocean,  differing  in  no  con- 


A   BREEZE  FROM  THE   WOODS.  23 

ceivable  way  from  brook  trout,  except  that  they  are 
larger.  They  take  the  grasshopper  and  the  worm 
like  honest  fish  bred  up  to  a  country  diet.  Some 
icthyologist  may  show  a  distinction  without  a  differ 
ence.  The  camp-fire  reveals  none. 

The  ocean  slope  of  the  Coast  Range  is  much  the 
best  for  a  summer  excursion.  The  woods  and  the 
waters  are  full  of  life.  There  is  a  stretch  of  sixty  miles 
or  more  from  the  San  Gregorio  Creek  in  San  Mateo 
County,  to  the  Aptos  Creek  on  Monterey  Bay,  in 
Santa  Cruz  County,  where  there  is  an  average  of  one 
good  trout  stream  for  every  five  miles  of  coast  line. 
There  are  wooded  slopes,  dense  redwood  forests,  and 
mountains  in  the  background  where  the  lion  still  has 
a  weakness  for  sucking  colts,  and  the  grizzly  will 
sometimes  make  a  breakfast  on  a  cow,  in  default  of 
tender  pigs.  But  neither  lion  nor  bear  is  lord  of  the 
forest.  Both  are  sneaking  cowards,  the  lion  not  even 
fighting  for  her  whelps.  It  is  better,  however,  on 
meeting  either,  not  to  prolong  the  scrutiny,  until  you 
have  surveyed  a  tree  every  way  suitable  for  climbing. 
The  "shinning"  having  been  done,  you  can  make 
up  faces  and  fling  back  defiance  with  some  show  of 
coolness.  Then  all  along  there  is  a  fore-ground  of 
I 


24  A   BREEZE  FROM  THE   WOODS. 

yellow  harvest  fields,  farm-houses  and  orchards ;  the 
cattle  cluster  under  the  evergreen  oaks  at  mid-day. 
Wide  off  is  the  great  sounding  sea  with  its  fretting 
shore  line  and  its  eternal  reach  of  waters — so  near 
and  yet  so  remote.  Low  down  on  the  horizon  are 
the  white  specks  of  ships  drawing  near  from  the  other 
side  ot  the  globe — coming  perhaps  from  the  dear  old 
home  to  lay  treasures  at  your  feet  in  the  new  one — 
linking  the  new  and  the  old  together  by  this  swift 
and  silent  journey,  begun  as  of  yesterday,  and  ended 
to-day.  There  is  no  place  afar  off.  The  palms  lift 
up  their  "  fronded "  heads  just  over  there ;  and  the 
cocoanut  drops  down  as  from  an  opening  heaven — 
more  is  the  shame  that  those  frowsy,  low-browed 
cannibals  are  not  content  therewith,  but  so  affect  the 
rib  roast  of  a  white  man,  and  that  too  in  a  tropical 
climate!  If  men  would  always  look  up  for  their  food 
they  might  become  angels.  But  looking  down,  they 
may  yet  become  tadpoles  or  demons.  It  needs  but  a 
little  Buddhism  grafted  on  to  the  development  theory 
to  turn  some  of  the  human  species  back  into  devil-fish. 
For  when  one  is  wholly  given,  up  to  seek  his  prey  by 
virtue  of  suction  and  tentacula,  he  might  as  well  live 
under  water  as  out  of  it.  It  might  be  hard  to  go  back 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.      25 

and  begin  as  a  crocodile ;  but  if  some  of  our  species 
have  once  been  there  and  show  no  improvement  worthy 
of  mention  since,  why  the  sooner  these  voracious,  jaw- 
snapping  creatures  are  turned  back  perhaps  the  better. 
Ketchum  has  made  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  this 
year  in  buying  up  doubtful  titles  and  turning  widows 
and  orphans  out  of  their  homes.  Tell  me,  oh  Brahmin, 
if  this  man  was  not  a  crocodile  a  thousand  years  ago  ? 
And  if  he  slips  any  where  a  link  in  his  chain  of 
development,  where  will  he  be  a  thousand  years 
hence  ? 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  pitch  the  tent  hard  by  the  sea 
shore  once  in  a  while.  Salt  is  preservative;  and 
there  is  a  tonic  in  the  smell  of  sea  weed.  Your  best 
preserved  men  and  women  have  been  duly  salted. 
The  deer  sometimes  come  down  to  get  a  sip  of  saline 
water,  and  are  partial  to  mineral  springs,  which  one 
can  find  every  few  miles  along  the  mountain  slopes. 
The  sea  weeds,  or  mosses,  are  in  their  glory.  Such 
hues  of  carnation  and  purple,  and  such  delicate 
tracery  as  you  shall  never  see  in  any  royal  garden.  A 
hook  was  thrown  in  for  the  fish,  perchance,  with  the 
dyes  of  Tyrian  purple.  But  there  came  out  a  great 
wide-mouthed,  slimy  eel,  which  was  kicked  down  the 


26  A   BREEZE  FROM  THE   WOODS. 

beach  into  the  water,  with  a  hint  never  to  reveal  so 
much  ugliness  again  on  any  shore  of  the  round 
world.  Your  sea-lion  has  no  beauty  to  speak  of;  but 
he  is  an  expert  fisher  and  knows  how  to  dry  himself 
upon  the  rocks.  When  a  hundred  of  them  take  to 
the  water,  with  their  black  heads  bobbing  about,  they 
might  be  taken  for  so  many  shipwrecked  contrabands. 
How  many  ages  were  required  for  the  ocean  to  quarry 
these  grains  of  sand,  which  under  a  glass,  become 
cubes  and  pentagons  as  goodly  as  the  stones  of  Venice  ? 
No  more  under  this  head,  for  "  quahaugs  "  and  mussels 
are  terribly  anti-suggestive. 

The  young  quails  are  only  half-grown ;  but  they  run 
about  in  very  wantonness  in  all  directions.  How  keen 
is  the  instinct  of  danger  in  every  tenant  of  the  woods  \ 
and  yet  birds  hop  about  in  all  directions  with  a 
consciousness  that  no  evil  will  befall  them.  A  couple  of 
wood-peckers  on  a  trunk  of  a  tree  just  overhead,  have 
curiously  ribbed  and  beaded  it  up  with  acorns  fitted 
into  holes  for  winter  use.  So  nicely  is  the  work  done, 
and  so  exact  the  fit,  that  the  squirrels  cannot  get  them 
out.  And  yet  the  wild  doves  which  we  want  for  our 
breakfast,  flit  away  upon  the  first  sign  of  approach. 
The  era  of  shot-guns  is  not  a  millenium  era,  and  the 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE   WOODS.  27 

screech  of  a  bursting  shell  is  not  exactly  a  psalm  of 
life.  The  tenderness  of  the  Hindoo  in  the  matter  of 
taking  life,  for  food,  I  suspect,  is  because  of  his 
philosophy.  Soul  transmigration  holds  him  in  check, 
otherwise  he  might  be  found  eating  his  grandmother. 
But  a  school-girl  riots  on  tender  lambs,  and  is  not  a 
whit  afraid  of  eating  her  ancestors.  There  is  a  curious 
linking  of  innocence  with  blood-shedding  in  our  times, 
enough  to  suggest  an  unconscious  cannibalism,  one 
remove  from  that  of  the  happy  islanders. 

An  old  farmer  came  up  to  see  us,  attracted  by  the 
white  tent,  and  having  a  lurking  suspicion  that  we 
might  be  squatters.  He  confirmed  the  theory  that 
the  flow  of  water  from  springs  in  this  region  was 
permanently  increased  by  the  great  earthquake.  "  You 
see,"  said  he,  "it  gave  natur'  a  powerful  jog."  After 
the  shock,  a  column  of  dust  arose  from  the  chalk  cliffs 
and  falling  banks  on  the  shore  line,  which  could  have 
been  seen  for  twenty  miles.  There  was  a  noise  as  of 
the  rumbling  of  chariots  in  the  mountain  tops,  and  the 
smoke  went  up  as  from  the  shock  of  armies  in  battle. 
The  great  sea  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  then 
broke  along  the  shore  with  a  deep  sigh  as  though 
some  mighty  relief  had  come  at  last.  All  the  trees  of 


28      A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

the  mountain  sides  bowed  their  heads,  as  if  adoring 
that  Omnipotence  which  made  the  mountains  tremble 
at  its  touch.  If  one  could  have  been  just  here,  he 
might  have  seen  the  grandest  sight  of  ages ;  for  this 
was  the  very  focus  of  the  earthquake.  As  it  was,  we 
got  no  impression  of  that  event  above  a  suspicion 
that  a  mad  bull  was  butting  away  at  the  northwest 
corner  of  a  little  country  church,  with  some  alarming 
signs  that  he  was  getting  the  best  of  the  encounter. 

One  learns  to  distinguish  the  sounds  of  this  multi 
tudinous  life  in  the  woods,  after  a  few  days,  with  great 
facility.  The  bark  of  the  coyote  becomes  as  familiar 
as  that  of  a  house  dog.  But  there  is  the  solitary  chirp 
of  a  bird  at  midnight,  never  heard  after  daylight,  of 
which  beyond  this  we  know  nothing.  We  know  better 
from  whence  come  the  cries,  as  of  a  lost  child  at 
night,  far  up  the  mountain.  The  magpies  and  the 
jays  hop  round  the  tent  for  crumbs ;  and  a  coon 
helped  himself  from  the  sugar  box  one  day  in  our 
absence.  He  was  welcome,  though  a  question  more 
nice  than  wise  was  raised  as  to  whether,  on  that 
occasion,  his  hands  and  nose  were  clean.  There  is 
danger  of  knowing  too  much.  It  is  better  not  to 
know  a  multitude  of  small  things  which  are  like 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.      29 

nettles  to  the  soul.  What  strangely  morbid  people 
are  those  who  can  suggest  more  unpleasant  things  in 
half  an  hour  than  one  ought  to  hear  in  a  life-time ! 
Did  I  care  before  the  question  was  raised,  whether  the 
coon's  nose  were  clean  or  otherwise  ?  Now  there  is  a 
lurking  suspicion  that  it  was  not.  If  you  offer  your 
friend  wine,  is  it  necessary  to  tell  him  that  barefooted 
peasants  trampled  out  the  grapes  ?  Is  honeycomb  any 
the  sweeter  for  a  confession  that  a  bee  was  also  ground 
to  pulp  between  the  teeth?  We  covet  retentive 
memories.  But  more  trash  is  laid  up  than  most 
people  know  what  to  do  with.  There  is  great  peace 
and  blessedness  in  the  art  of  forgetfulness.  The 
memory  of  one  sweet,  patient  soul  is  better  than  a 
record  of  a  thousand  selfish  lives. 

It  was  a  fine  conceit,  and  womanly  withal,  which 
wove  a  basket  out  of  plantain  rods  and  clover,  and 
brought  it  into  camp  filled  with  wild  strawberries. 
Thanks,  too,  that  the  faintest  tints  of  carnation  are 
beginning  to  touch  cheeks  that  were  so  pallid  a  fort 
night  ago.  Every  spring  bursting  from  the  hill-side 
is  a  fountain  of  youth,  although  none  have  yet 
smoothed  out  certain  crow  tracks.  The  madrono,  the 
most  brilliant  of  the  forest  trees,  sheds  its  outer  bark 


30      A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

every  season ;  when  the  outer  rind  curls  up  and  falls 
off,  the  renewed  tree  has  a  shaft  polished  like  jasper 
or  emerald.  When  humanity  begins  to  wilt,  what  a 
pity  that  the  cuticle  does  not  peel  as  a  sign  of 
rejuvenation  !  There  is  also  a  hint  of  a  sanitary  law 
requiring  people  averse  to  bathing  to  peel  every  spring. 
There  is  a  sense  of  relief  in  getting  lost  now  and 
then  in  the  impenetrable  fastnesses  of  the  woods ;  and 
a  shade  of  novelty  in  the  thought  that  no  foot-fall  has 
been  heard  in  some  of  these  dells  and  jungles  for  a 
thousand  years.  It  is  not  so  easy  a  matter  to -get 
lost  after  all.  The  bark  of  every  forest  tree  will  show 
which  is  the  north  side,  and  a  bright  cambric  needle 
dropped  gently  upon  a  dipper  of  water  is  a  compass 
of  unerring  accuracy.  A  scrap  of  old  newspaper 
serves  as  a  connecting  link  with  the  world  beyond. 
The  pyramids  were  probably  the  first  newspapers — a 
clumsy  but  rather  permanent  edition.  Stereotyping  in 
granite  was  the  pioneer  process.  Then  came  the 
pictured  rocks — the  illustrated  newspaper  of  the 
aborigines,  free,  so  far  as  I  know,  from  the  diabolism 
which  pollutes  the  pictorial  papers  of  our  time. 
There  are  some  heights  of  civilization  which  are  the 
fruitful  subject  of  gabble  and  mild  contemplation. 


A   BREEZE  FROM  THE   WOODS.  31 

But  who  fathoms  the  slums  so  deep  and  bottomless, 
out  of  whose  depths  springs  the  inspiration  of  some  of 
the  illustrated  prints  of  our  time?  Photography  is 
the  herald  of  pictorial  illustrations  which  are  yet  to 
flood  the  world.  The  mentotype  has  not  yet  been 
discovered — a  little  machine  to  take  the  impression  of 
the  secret  thoughts  of  a  friend,  as  now  his  features  are 
transfixed  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  The  world  is 
not  yet  sober  and  circumspect  enough  for  this  last 
invention.  And  these  interior  lives  might  lose  some 
thing  of  imaginary  symmetry  by  turning  inside  out. 

But  let  us  hope  that  the  musician  is  born  who  will 
yet  come  to  the  woods  and  take  down  all  the  bird 
songs.  What  a  splendid  baritone  the  horned  owl  has  ! 
Who  has  written  the  music  of  the  orioles  and  thrushes  ? 
Who  goes  to  these  bird  operas  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning  ?  There  is  room  for  one  fresh,  original  music 
book,  the  whole  of  which  can  be  written  at  a  few 
sittings  upon  a  log  just  where  the  forests  are  shaded 
off  into  copses  and  islands  of  verdure  beyond. 

It  is  something  to  have  lived  three  weeks  without 
a  sight  of  the  sheriff,  the  doctor  or  the  undertaker. 
Something  of  a  victory  to  have  passed  out  from  under 
the  burden  of  intense  anxiety  into  a  condition  of 


32  A   BREEZE  FROM  THE    WOODS. 

r 

serene  indifference  as  to  how  this  boisterous  old  world 
was  getting  on.  If  so  much  as  a  fugitive  letter  had 
reached  us,  it  would  have  been  construed  into  a  mild 
case  of  assault  and  battery.  The  business  of  rejuvena 
tion  commences  with  lying  down  on  the  ground  at 
night  with  the  head  due  north,  that  the  polar  current 
may  strike  the  weary  brain  first  and  gently  charge  the 
whole  mortal  system.  The  days  of  renewal  may  end  by 
circumventing  a  two-pound  trout,  or  with  a  long  range 
rifle  shooting  atxa  running  deer.  But  as  no  pilgrim 
ever  reached  the  gates  of  Paradise  with  a  pack  on  his 
back,  so  it  is  reasonably  certain  that  heaven  never 
came  down  to  one  who  carried  his  burden  into  the 
wilderness  in  vacation. 

What  a  great  repose  there  is  in  these  mountains 
draped  in  purple  and  camping  like  giants  hard  by  the 
sea !  And  yet  what  an  infinite  shifting  of  light  and 
shadow  there  is  on  sea  and  shore !  Is  the  artist  yet 
to  be  born  on  this  soil  who  will  paint  the  mountains 
in  the  glory  of  an  evening  transfiguration ;  or  who  will 
catch  the  inspiration  of  these  grand  defiles,  opening 
vistas,  and  landscapes  ripened  and  subdued  under  the 
harvest  sun  ?  We  will  leave  him  our  bill  of  fare,  that 
he  may  take  heart  on  finding  that  while  fame  follows 


A  BREEZE  FROM  -THE   WOODS. 


33 


translation,  a  good  dinner  may  safely  precede  that 
event  And  as  for  you,  oh  friend,  with  the  sallow  face 
and  sunken  eyes — you  had  better  get  to  the  woods 
and  read  it  for  very  life. 


WILD  HOI]EY 


LOCUSTS  AND  WILD   HONEY.* 


IT  matters  little  how  one  betakes  himself  to  the 
wilderness,  so  that  he  gets  there  in  some  fitting  mood 
to  enjoy  its  great  hospitality.  If  a  bruised  and 
battered  guest,  so  much  the  more  need  of  the 
profound  peace  and  restfulness  of  the  woods.  There 
is  a  fine  contrast  in  the  autumn  tints  of  yellow  stubble 
fields  set  with  the  unfading  green  of  oaks,  like  emeralds 
in  settings  of  gold.  The  mysteries  of  the  uplifted 
mountains  are  veiled  in  with  a  dreamy  haze,  as  if  all 
harsh  and  jerky  outlines  were  the  unfinished  places 
yet  to  be  rounded  into  fullness  and  beauty  before  the 
day  of  unveiling  comes.  These  mighty  throes  of 
nature  may  be  in  accordance  with  some  law  of 
adjustment  working  towards  an  eternal  perfection  of 
finish,  of  which  we  have  not  yet  attained  so  much  as 
a  dim  conception.  If  our  play,  houses  are  toppled 
over,  so  much  the  better  for  some  of  the  shams  which 


*  As  the  title  of  this  paper  was  adopted  more  than  eleven  years  ago,  it 
has  not  been  deemed  expedient  to  change  it  because  Mr.  John  Burroughs 
has  recently  chosen  it  as  the  title  of  his  book. 


38  LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  HONEY. 

now  and  then  need  the  wholesome  revision  of  fires 
and  earthquakes.  You  see  that  ambitious  wooden 
palace  down  the  valley.  What  does  it  symbolize 
more  than  pretence,  weakness  and  barrenness  of  all 
aesthetic  culture  ?  Some  day  nature  will  feel  the 
affront,  and  this  blot  in  the  foreground  of  a  noble 
picture  will  be  gone.  Is  it  because  this  type  of  civiliza 
tion  is  but  for  a  day,  that  the  habitations  of  men  are 
built  for  a  day  also?  Where  do  our  architects  get 
their  inspiration,  that  they  cut  such  fantastic  capers  in 
wood  ?  It  might  be  well  to  put  a  new  padlock  on  the 
tomb  of  Cicero  before  any  further  imitations  of  the 
villa  at  Tusculum  are  perpetrated.  The  savage  leaves 
behind  some  show  of  broken  pottery,  or  at  least,  here 
and  there,  an  arrowhead  of  flint  We  do  not  build 
well  enough  to  secure  any  respectable  ruins.  What 
other  antiquities,  besides  debts,  are  we  likely  to 
bequeath  to  posterity  ? 

The  trailing  dust  of  the  beaten  thoroughfare  comes 
to  an  end  at  last.  The  ox-teams  have  crawled  down 
into  the  valley,  more  patient  than  the  driver,  who 
causes  a  perpetual  series  of  undulations  to  run  along 
their  backs  by  an  inhuman  prodding.  There  are 
some  vocations  which  seem  to  develop  all  the 


LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  HONEY.  39 

hatefulness  and  cruelty  of  human  nature,  and  this  is 
evidently .  one  of  them.  In  five  minutes  more  there 
will  be  no  visible  sign  of  civilization  in  all  the  horizon. 
If  one  is  piqued  at  the  silence  of  a  reception  in  the 
wilderness,  let  him  consider  how  gracious  it  is,  withal. 
It  will  grow  upon  him  from  day  to  day,  until  he  may 
come  to  think  that  these  very  solitudes  have  been 
waiting  for  his  coming  a  thousand  years.  It  is  not  to 
go  apart  from  ourselves,  but  to  recover  a  more  intense 
self-consciousness,  that  we  need  this  seclusion.  The 
ceaseless  jar  and  uproar  of  life  set  in  a  hard  material 
ism  at  last,  because  there  has  been  an  absence  of  all 
softening  influences  and  all  seasons  of  communion. 
It  is  a  small  thing  that  the  dead  are  sometimes  turned 
to  stone  by  some  chemistry  of  nature.  But  what  of 
the  living  who  are  every  day  turning  to  stone  by  an 
increasing  deadness  to  all  human  sympathies  ? 

The  host  is  at  home  in  the  wilderness,  but  you  may 
not  see  his  face  for  many  a  day.  In  the  meantime 
there  is  the  guest  chamber ;  enter  and  make  no  ado 
about  it.  The  trees  overarch  you  gently,  and  bend 
with  graceful  salutations ;  the  rocks  are  most  generous 
hearth-stones,  and  the  pools  under  the  cliffs  are  large 
enough  for  a  morning  splash.  You  have  only  to 


40  LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  HONEY. 

climb  the  precipice  yonder  to  count  more  towns  and 
villages  than  you  have  fingers.  But  the  sight  is  not 
worth  the  effort,  since  one  needs  to  pray  earnestly  for 
deliverance  from  both.  If  most  country  villages  on 
this  coast  are  not  so  many  blots  upon  otherwise  fine 
landscapes,  how  much  do  they  fall  short  of  them? 
The  authorities  of  the  most  favored  town  in  the  State, 
so  far  as  climate  and  physical  characteristics  go, 
could  think  of  nothing  better  than  to  destroy  a  line  of 
Mission  willows,  extending  through  the  main  street  for 
nearly  a  mile — every  tree  a  monument  of  historic 
interest — and  then,  with  innocent  boorishness,  looked 
up  to  the  faces  of  men  who  were  ashamed  of  them, 
for  some  token  of  approval.  Tree-murder  has  cul 
minated,  let  us  hope,  since  Time  has  been  busy 
swinging  his  scythe  close  upon  the  heels  of  the 
culprits.  There  may  be  hope  for  the  next  generation. 
The  children  born  upon  the  soil  may  get  a  better 
inspiration,  and  draw  a  more  generous  life  from  the 
earth  which  nourishes  them.  How,  otherwise,  shall 
these  dreary  highways  and  barren  villages  be  translated 
from  ugliness  to  beauty  ?  What  a  divine  challenge  do 
these  encompassing  mountains  and  grandest  of  forests 
send  out  to  men  to  cease  defiling  the  earth  ! 


LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  HONEY.  41 

It  is  not  so  much  a  question  whether  the  "  coming 
man  "  will  be  a  wine-bibber,  as  whether  the  wilderness 
and  the  solitary  place  shall  be  glad  for  him.  Will  he 
plant  trees  ?  Will  he  train  rivulets  adown  the  moun 
tains  into  stone  fountains  by  dusty  roadsides?  Will 
he  refuse  to  cut  down  trees  because  they  are  old,  with 
as  sturdy  a  decision  as  he  would  refrain  from  cutting 
a  man's  legs  off  because  he  chanced  to  be  old  and 
venerable  ?  Will  he  recognize  the  great  truth  that  the 
earth  is  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  and  that  he  is  sent 
forth  to  dress  it,  and  make  it,  if  possible,  still  more 
beautiful?  If  he  will  not,  by  all  that  is  good,  let  a 
message  be  sent  to  the  "  coming  man  "  not  to  come. 

What  a  large  freedom  there  is  in  the  wilderness ! 
You  come  and  go  with  a  consciousness  that  you  will 
be  fed  and  lodged  in  a  manner  both  befitting  you  and 
your  host.  There  are  no  pressing  attentions,  and 
no  snobbery  to  offend.  Mr.  Bullion  said  at  his 
feast  that  he  had  made  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
million  of  dollars  by  some  lucky  ventures  this  year ; 
and  that  he  is  interested  in  several  horses  of  a 
remarkably  fast  gait.  Did  he  propose  to  make  some 
grateful  return  for  so  much  good  fortune?  Would 
he  found  a  library  ?  endow  a  school  ?  encourage  some 


42  LOCUSTS  AND    WILD   HONEY. 

scientific  expedition?  become  a  generous  patron  of 
the  struggling  literature  of  the  new  commonwealth? 
He  had  thought  of  none  of  these  things.  Nor  did  it 
occur  to  him  how  much  emptiness  there  was  at  the 
feast.  It  is  saddest  of  all  that  so  many  of  our  rich 
men  neither  recognize  times  nor  opportunities.  They 
have  not  yet  learned  to  make  a  feast  an  occasion  of 
noble  deeds.  Of  grosser  hospitality  there  is  no  lack ; 
but  the  lame,  the  halt,  and  the  blind,  are  none  the 
better  for  it. 

There  is  something  ignoble  in  reducing  the  problem 
of  life  to  a  mere  game  of  "keeps."  The  world  is 
probably  mortgaged  or  put  in  pawn  for  more  than  it 
is  worth,  considering  how  much  rubbish  goes  with  it. 
The  wrappers  of  Egyptian  mummies  of  high  lineage, 
which  were  wound  up  four  thousand  years  ago,  have 
been  sold  in  our  times  for  paper-stock.  But  will  the 
men  of  these  times,  who  boast  that  they  have  got  the 
world  in  pawn,  contribute  so  much  as  one  nether 
garment  to  posterity  four  thousand  years  hence  ?  The 
world  changes  hands  every  thirty  years,  and  a  new  set 
of  pawn-keepers  appears ;  but  it  is  the  same  old  grip. 
There  will  be  confusion  yet,  when  the  secret  is  found 
out  that  the  world  is  worth  only  a  moiety  of  the  sum 


LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  HONEY.  43 

for  which  it  is  pledged,  and  there  is  a  general  call  for 
collaterals. 

It  is  not  safe  to  despise  this  tonic  of  the  wilderness. 
Most  men  do  not  know  how  small  they  are  until  they 
go  forth  into  some  larger  place.  It  is  good  to  have 
illusions  dispelled  in  a  healthy  way.  A  man  is  great  in 
the  counting-room,  pulpit  or  forum,  because  no  one  has 
thought  it  worth  the  while  to  dispute  the  assumption. 
The  position  held  at  first  by  sufferance  may  ripen  into 
a  possessory  title,  provided  he  sticks  to  his  claim. 

The  pholas  wears  a  round  hole  by  much  scouring 
and  attrition  in  the  rock,  and  is  stronger  and  greater 
in  that  hole  than  any  other  occupant  can  be.  The 
"  sphere  is  filled,"  and  what  more  would  you  have  ? 
There  is  an  excess  of  little  great  men,  who  have 
managed  by  much  grinding  and  abrasion  to  wear  a 
hole  in  the  rock,  into  which  they  fit  with  surprising 
accuracy.  They  are  great  within  their  own  dominion  ; 
but  how  small  the  moment  they  are  pushed  beyond  it  ! 
No  violence  can  be  too  harsh  which  breaks  off  the  petty 
limitations  of  one's  life.  The  valley  through  which 
men  are  called  to  walk  ought  to  widen  every  day, 
until  some  grand  outlook  is  gained.  It  is  not  the 
gentle  south-wind,  but  the  blast  of  the  hurricane,  which 


44  LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  HONEY. 

makes  them  move  on.  And  when  one  is  violently 
wrenched  out  of  his  place,  let  him  accept  it  as  a 
Divine  interposition  to  save  him  from  eternal  littleness. 
There  is  that  spring  yonder  under  the  shelving  rock, 
having  a  trace  of  sulphur  and  iron,  and  possibly,  some 
other  qualities  for  physical  regeneration.  For  two 
hours  at  mid-day  there  has  been  a  succession  of  birds 
and  beasts  to  its  waters.  Curiously  enough,  there  has 
been  no  collision;  but  every  kind  in  its  own  order. 
The  roe,  with  a  half-grown  fawn,  comes  down  early  in 
the  morning ;  and  as  the  heat  of  mid-day  increases, 
coveys  of  quails,  led  by  the  parent-birds,  emerge  from 
the  thickets,  and  trail  along  to  the  spring.  Later  still, 
orioles,  thrushes,  robins,  linnets,  and  a  wild  mocking 
bird  without  any  name,  go  down  not  only  to  drink, 
but  to  lave  in  the  waters.  You  may  watch  for  days 
and  months,  but  you  will  never  see  the  hawk  or  the 
crow,  or  any  unclean  bird  do  this  thing.  But  birds 
of  song,  which  have  neither  hooked  beaks  nor  talons, 
sprinkle  themselves  with  purifying  waters,  and  are 
innocent  of  ail  violence  and  blood.  The  spring  is  not 
only  a  tonic,  but  it  serves  to  take  the  conceit  out  of  a 
ponderous  man  who  has  been  putting  on  the  airs  of 
wisdom  in  the  woods.  He,  too,  went  down  on  "  all- 


LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  HONEY.  45 

fours"  to  drink;  and  such  an  ungraceful  figure  did 
this  counting-house  prince  make,  and  blew  so  like  a 
hippopotamus  backing  out  of  the  ooze  and  mire,  that 
all  the  woods  rang  with  wildest  mirth.  But  a  lad, 
bending  the  visor  of  his  cap,  lifted  the  water  to  his 
mouth,  and  drank  erect  like  one  to  the  manor  born. 
For  the  space  of  half  an  hour  the  great  man  was  as 
humble  as  a  child,  and  there  was  no  more  wisdom  in 
him.  But  the  spirit  of  divination  overtook  him  at 
last;  with  a  tape  line  he  set  about  measuring  the  girth 
of  the  noblest  redwood  tree  of  the  forest;  and  with 
pencil  in  hand  was  calculating  the  number  of  thousand 
feet  of  inch-boards  it  would  make,  if  cut  up  at  the 
mills  !  If  the  gentle  -hamadryad  which,  for  aught  I 
know,  still  dwelleth  in  every  living  tree,  saw  this 
gross  affront,  there  were  utterances  which  were  nigh 
unto  cursing.  Were  the  forests  made  for  no  better 
ends  than  this  sordid  wood-craft  which  hews  down  and 
saws  them  into  deals  for  dry-good  boxes  and  the 
counters  of  shop-keepers  ?  There  is  not  one  tree  too 
many  on  this  round  globe;  and  the  whole  herd  of 
wood  craftsmen  ought  to  be  served  with  notices  to  set 
out  a  new  tree  for  every  one  destroyed,  or  quit  at  once. 
It  is  worth  the  inquiry,  at  what  point  that  tendency 


46  LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  HONEY. 

in  modern  civilization  is  to  be  arrested,  which  is 
hastening  the  world  on  to  barrenness  and  desolation. 
The  sites  of  ruined  cities  are  deserts  often;  but  rarely 
is  one  overgrown  with  forest  trees;  as  though  nature 
were  still  in  revolt,  and  had  no  heart  for  renewal, 
where  for  ages  she  has  been  ravaged  and  impoverished 
by  multitudinous  populations.  Observe,  too,  how 
nature  shifts  her  burdens.  The  sand  drifts  to-day  over 
the  foundations  of  the  vastest  cities  of  antiquity. 
But  when  the  great  cycle  of  rest  is  filled  out,  if  so  be 
that  the  old  verdure  is  restored,  what  wastes  may 
there  not  be,  and  what  drifting  sands  over  buried 
cities  in  the  heart  of  this  continent  ?  What  ravages, 
too,  are  these  new  demons  yet  to  commit  upon  the 
forests,  as  they  go  up  and  down  the  mountain  sides 
with  wheels  of  thunder  and  eyes  of  flame  ?  Are  all 
the  trees  of  the  woods  to  be  offered  up  to  these  new 
idols  of  civilization  ? 

All  sounds  are  musical  in  the  woods,  and  the  far-off 
tinkling  of  a  cow-bell  is  wondrously  grateful  to  the  ear. 
There  is  nothing  marvelous  in  the  sharpened  senses 
of  an  Indian.  This  half-grown  lad  is  already  a  match 
for  the  best  of  them.  There  is  not  a  sound  in  the 
woods,  however  obscure,  that  he  does  not  rightly 


LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  HONEY.  47 

interpret;  and  I  have  more  than  once  been  misled 
by  his  counterfeit  imitations  of  game  birds  and  wild 
animals.  No  Indian  can  reason  from  observation  so 
accurately  as  he  whose  intellect  has  had  the  schooling 
of  nature  grafted  upon  the  discipline  of  books.  The 
sharpest  insight  into  nature  is  never  given  to  the 
savage,  but  to  him  whose  grosser  senses  have  been 
purged,  and  whose  vision  is  clarified  by  some  wisdom 
which  is  let  down  from  above. 

All  healthy  souls  love  the  society  of  trees ;  and  the 
mold  which  feeds  them  is  a  better  fertilizer  of  thought 
than  the  mold  of  many  books.  You  see  the  marks  of 
fires  which  have  swept  along  these  mountain  sides; 
here  and  there  the  trunk  of  a  redwood  has  been 
streaked  by  a  tongue  of  flame.  But  the  tree  wears  its 
crown  of  eternal  green.  It  is  only  the  dry  sticks  and 
rubbish  which  are  burned  up  to  make  more  room  for 
the  giants;  while  many  noxious  reptiles  have  been 
driven  back  to  their  holes.  Possibly,  the  wood-ticks 
number  some  millions  less.  But  very  little  that  is 
worth  saving  is  consumed. 

We  shall  need  a  regenerating  fire  some  day,  to  do 
for  books  what  is  done  for  the  forests.  May  it  be  a 
hot  one  when  it  comes.  Let  no  dry  sticks  nor  vermin 


48  LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  HONEY. 

escape.  Ninety  in  every  hundred  books  which  have 
got  into  our  libraries  within  the  last  half  century,  will 
fail  to  enlighten  the  world  until  there  is  one  good, 
honest  conflagration.  Something  might  be  gained 
from  the  ashes  of  these  barren  books;  therefore,  pile 
on  the  rubbish,  and  use  the  poker  freely.  Let  not 
the  fire  go  out  until  some  cords  of  pious  doggerel, 
concocted  in  the  name  of  poetry,  have  been  added 
thereto.  The  giants  will  survive  the  flames;  but 
punk-wood,  moths,  and  wood-ticks  will  all  be  gone. 

By  a  noteworthy  coincidence,  when  the  smell  of 
autumn  fruits  comes  up  from  the  valley,  and  the 
grapes  hang  in  clusters  on  the  hillsides,  and  wine 
presses  overflow,  the  last  sign  of  dearth  is  obliterated 
by  the  swelling  of  all  hidden  fountains.  The  earth  is 
not  jubilant  without  water.  The  springs  which  had 
been  lost,  gurgle  in  the  crevices  of  the  rocks,  and 
streaks  of  dampness  are  seen  along  the  trails,  where, 
in  the  early  morning,  little  rivulets  ran  and  interlaced 
and  retired  before  the  sun.  There  will  be  no  rain  for 
weeks.  There  has  been  none  for  months.  The  trees 
by  the  wayside  faint  and  droop  under  the  burden  of 
heat  and  dust.  But  they  know  this  signal  of  the 
coming  rain.  The  fountains  below  seem  to  know, 


LOCUSTS  AND   WILD  HONEY.  49 

also,  at  what  time  the  fountains  above  are  to  be 
unsealed;  and  these  pulsing  streams  are  the  answering 
signal.  Shorter  days  and  diminished  solar  evaporation 
will  answer  as  a  partial  clearing  up  of  the  mystery. 
But  if  the  profoundest  truth  has  not  yet  been  touched, 
suppose,  oh  philospher  of  many  books  and  many 
doubts,  that  you  let  your  grapnel  into  the  depths  for 
it?  Only  be  sure  that  your  line  is  long  enough,  and 
that  you  bring  no  more  rubbish  to  the  surface.  There 
is  more  truth  above  ground  than  most  of  us  will 
master.  And  we  stumble  over  it  in  field  and  forest, 
like  luckless  treasure-hunters;  when  a  ringing  blow 
upon  the  dull  rock  would  reveal  filaments  of  gold,  or 
the  glancing  light  of  crystals.  There  are  some  truths, 
also,  whose  insufferable  light  we  cannot  bear.  They 
must  be  shaded  off,  like  half  tints  at  set  of  sun. 
And  if  any  prophet  coming  out  of  the  wilderness 
shall  dare  to  tell  more,  let  him  eat  his  locusts  and 
wild  honey  first,  for  he  cannot  tell  whether  he  will 
be  crowned  or  stoned. 


ft  WEEK 


A  WEEK   IN   MENDOCINO. 


IF  one  is  in  robust  health  and  a  vigorous  trencher 
man,  who  is  there  on  the  earth,  in  these  degenerate 
times,  to  congratulate  him  on  such  good  fortune? 
But  no  sooner  is  there  a  gastric  revolt  at  the  diabolical 
inventions  of  some  high-priestess  of  the  kitchen,  with 
a  growing  cadaverousness,  than  every  friend  is  ready 
with  an  ominous  warning.  When  we  publish  a  list 
of  the  patent  medicines  recommended,  the  world 
will  know  how  many  disinterested  friends  we  have. 
Just  now,  the  earth  cure  is  all-potent.  Try  it  in  any 
shape  you  like — as  a  mud  bath,  a  powder,  a  poultice, 
or  an  honest  bed  at  mid-day — and  this  chemistry  of 
earth  and  sun  will  work  wonders.  Are  we  not 
getting  back  to  first  principles?  You  talk  of  the 
shaking  up  which  religious  dogmas  have  suffered 
within  the  last  half  century :  what  is  there  of  all  the 
medical  theories  of  the  last  fifteen  hundred  years 
which  now  goes  unchallenged  ? 


54  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

Yosemite  has  been  a  little  overdone  of  late.  The 
seashore  and  the  springs  are  dreadfully  haunted  by 
the  young  lady  in  rustic  hat,  garnished  with  pea-green 
ribbon,  and  who  either  writes  poetry,  or  reads  the 
latest  love  story.  There  is  comfort  in  the  fact  that 
the  territory  of  this  State  is  not  more  than  half 
explored,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  for  some  time  to 
come.  There  are  reaches  equal  to  a  degree  of 
latitude  untrodden,  as  yet,  by  the  foot  of  the  tourist, 
and  where  the  clanking  of  the  surveyor's  chain  and 
rods  has  never  been  heard ;  and  some  of  these  you 
may  find  within  two  hundred  miles  of  San  Francisco. 
Going  still  farther,  there  are  vales  where  a  white  man 
was,  till  recently,  something  of  a  curiosity.  It  is 
interesting  to  find  a  country  where  morganatic 
marriages  are  in  high  repute.  The  red-headed 
lumberman's  cross-cut  saw  would  not,  by  this  arrange 
ment,  descend  to  his  children ;  nor  would  an  old 
hunter's  powder-horn  and  ancient  rifle,  by  the  same 
prudential  forethought,  be  handed  down  to  some 
little  vagabond  half-breeds. 

In  twenty-four  hours  one  may  be  set  down  in  the 
wildest  part  of  Mendocino  County..  We  selected 
Anderson  Valley,  on  the  headwaters  of  the  Novarro 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  55 

River,  not  so  much  for  its  wildness  as  because  it 
was  the  most  accessible  spot  unfrequented  by  the 
tourist.  It  will  be  hard  to  miss  the  Russian  River 
Valley  in  getting  there,  and  harder  still  not  to  linger 
for  a  day  or  two  to  look  at  such  pictures  as  no  artist 
has  quite  succeeded  in  putting  on  to  his  canvas. 

There  was  the  mid-day  repose  of  St.  Helena, 
taking  on  a  royal  purple  as  the  day  advanced ;  the 
droning  sound  of  the  reapers  in  the  valley,  as  the 
rippling  wheat  bowed  to  a  sort  of  rural  song  of 
Old  Hundred !  and  the  very  cattle,  which,  for  aught 
I  know,  have  figured  in  a  dozen  pictures,  standing 
under  the  trees,  with  their  identical  tails  over  their 
backs.  Even  the  great  fields  of  corn,  which  rustled 
and  snapped  under  a  midsummer  sun,  were  toned 
a  little  by  the  long  column  of  mellow  dust  which 
spun  from  the  stage-wheels  and  trailed  for  a  mile 
in  the  rear.  The  artists  caution  against  too  much 
green  in  a  picture,  and  so  this  brown  pigment  was 
needed  to  give  the  best  effect;  and  there  was  no 
lack  of  material  to  "  lay  it  on "  liberally,  anywhere 
in  that  region.  With  the  dropping  down  of  the 
sun  behind  the  low  hills  on  the  west,  the  shadows 
fell  aslant  the  valley,  and  light  and  shade  melted 


56  A    WEEK  IN  MEN  DOC  I  NO. 

together  into  the  soft  twilight.  It  might  have  been 
a  favorable  time  for  sentiment.  But  just  then  the 
stage-coach  rounded  a  low  hillock,  and  a  farm-house 
was  brought  suddenly  into  the  foreground.  A  cosset, 
a  flock  of  geese,  a  windmill  moving  its  fans  indolently 
to  the  breath  of  the  west  wind,  a  dozen  ruminating 
cows — what  more  of  pastoral  simplicity  would  you 
have  for  the  fringe  of  such  a  landscape  ?  But  you 
see  it  was  slightly  overdone.  The  stout  young 
woman  milking  the  roan  cow  rather  heightened  the 
effect,  to  be  sure;  she  really  ought  to  have  been 
there.  But  did  any  feminine  mortal  ever  admin 
ister  such  a  kick  to  the  broad  sides  of  a  cow 
before?  There  was  a  dull  thud,  a  quadrupedal 
humping,  an  undulation  along  the  spine  of  that 
cow — and  the  stage-coach  was  out  of  sight.  O,  for 
the  brawn  and  muscle  to  administer  such  a  kick ! 
It  was  more  gymnastic  than  esthetic,  more  realistic 
than  poetical.  You  will  never  find  Arcadia  where 
such  a  powerful  feminine  battery  is  set  in  motion 
on  so  slight  a  provocation.  A  cow  might  survive ; 
but  you  need  not  describe  the  fate  of  any  man 
on  whom  such  a  force  were  expended.  And  seeing 
that  so  large  a  part  of  this  world  needs  a  healthy 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  57 

kicking,  more  is  the  pity  that  there  should  have 
been  such  a  needless  expenditure  of  force.  By 
what  mental  law  are  grand  and  ridiculous  scenes 
associated  together  ?  I  cannot  summon  the  towering 
majesty  of  St.  Helena,  the  golden  ripple  of  the 
harvest  fields,  the  receding  valley,  softened  by  the 
twilight,  but  ever  in  the  foreground  is  this  kicking 
milkmaid  and  that  unfortunate  cow.  If  a  house- 
painter  had  dabbed  his  brush  of  green  paint  on 
your  Van  Dyke,  you  might  be  stunned  by  this  very 
audacity,  and  turn  your  pet  picture  to  the  wall.  But 
the  house-painter  and  Van  Dyke  would  from  that 
time  forth  be  associated  together.  So  I  turn  this 
picture  to  the  wall,  only  wishing  that  the  kicking 
milkmaid  and  St.  Helena  had  been  a  thousand 
miles  apart. 

The  Russian  River  Valley  "pinches  out"  at 
Cloverdale,  a  pretty  little  town,  set  down  in  a  bowl 
with  a  very  large  rim — so  large,  that  unless  new  life 
should  be  infused  into  the  town,  it  will  not  be  likely 
to  slop  over.  Thence,  you  reach  the  head  of  An 
derson  Valley,  by  a  jaunt  of  thirty-two  miles,  in  a 
northwesterly  direction,  over  a  series  of  low  mountain 
ridges,  and  through  canyons,  sometimes  widening  out 


58  A    WEEK  IN  MEN  DOC  I  NO. 

into  "  potreros  "  large  enough  for  a  cattle  ranch,  and 
handsome  enough  for  a  gentlemen's  country-seat. 
Here  the  affluents  of  the  Novarro  River  are  drawn 
together  like  threads  of  lace;  and  the  first  trout 
stream  leaps  and  eddies  in  the  deep  defiles  on  its 
way  to  the  ocean.  There  is  no  use  of  fumbling  in 
an  outside  pocket  for  fish-hooks.  The  stream  has 
a  fishy  look;  but  that  band  of  rancheria  Indians,  who 
have  gone  into  summer  camp  on  a  sand-bar,  will 
settle  the  trout  question  for  the  next  ten  miles.  They 
pop  their  heads  out  of  a  round  hole  in  one  of  the 
wigwams  like  prairie  dogs,  and  seem  to  stand  on  their 
hind  legs,  with  the  others  pendent,  as  if  just  going  to 
bark.  These  are  the  aboriginal  Gypsies,  fortunate 
rascals,  who  pay  no  house-rent,  who  want  nothing  but 
what  they  can  steal,  or  what  can  be  got  from  the 
brawling  stream,  or  the  wooded  slopes  of  the  adjacent 
hills. 

These  funnel-shaped  willow  baskets,  lodged  here 
and  there  along  the  banks,  are  the  salmon  traps  of 
the  Indians,  which  have  done  duty  until  the  spring 
run  was  over.  When  the  salmon  has  once  set  his 
head  up  stream,  he  never  turns  it  down  again  until  he 
has  reached  the  extreme  limits  of  his  journey  and 


A    WEEK  IN  MEN  DOG  I  NO.  59 

accomplished  his  destiny.  The  Indians  understand 
this;  and  these  long  willow  funnels,  with  a  bell-shaped 
mouth,  are  laid  down  in  the  spring — a  clumsy  con 
trivance  to  be  sure;  but  the  salmon  enters  and  pushes 
his  way  on,  while  this  willow  cylinder  contracts  until 
it  closes  to  a  small  nozzle.  There  is  daylight  ahead ; 
the  stubborn  fish  will  not  back  down,  and  he  cannot 
"  move  on."  When  an  Indian  gets  hungry,  he  pulls 
up  this  willow  trap,  runs  a  spit  through  his  fish,  holds 
him  over  the  fire  a  little  while,  and  his  dinner  is 

ready. 

There  is  no  fish  story  which  one  may  not  believe 
when  in  a  gentle  mood.  And  thus,  when  farther 
down  the  stream,  a  settler  showed  us  a  wooden  fork 
such  as  is  used  to  load  gavels  of  grain,  with  which,  in 
less  than  an  hour,  he  pitched  out  of  this  same  stream 
a  wagon-load  of  salmon — why  should  we  doubt  his 
veracity?  No  lover  of  the  gentle  art  is  ever  skeptical 
about  the  truth  of  a  fish  story.  Faith  and  good  luck 
go  together.  How  was  our  faith  rewarded  soon 
afterward,  when,  taking  a  "cut-off,"  at  the  first  cast 
under  a  shelving  rock,  a  half-pound  trout  was  landed ! 
It  was  a  grasshopper  bait,  and  another  grasshopper 
had  to  be  run  down  before  another  cast.  It  is 


60  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOC1NO. 

wonderful  what  jumps  this  insect  will  make  when  he 
is  wanted  for  bait,  and  the  run  is  up  the  hill.  •  Another 
trout  snapped  illusively,  and  we  had  him — larger  by  a 
quarter  of  a  pound  than  the  first.  It  was  getting 
interesting!  No  doubt  the  settler  pitched  out  a  load 
of  salmon  with  a  wooden  fork.  A  kingdom  for  a 
grasshopper!  There  they  go  in  all  directions — and 
the  rascals  have  wings!  The  clumsy  stage-wagon  is 
creeping  far  up  the  hill.  A  beetle  is  tried;  it  won't 
do — no  decent  trout  ever  swallowed  a  beetle.  A 
dozen  splendid  game  fish  were  left  in  that  swirl  under 
the  rock.  Was  there  too  much  faith  in  that  wooden 
fork  story,  or  not  enough?  There  was  a  hitch  some 
where.  But  it  was  all  right  when  the  passengers 
dined  that  day  on  fried  bacon,  and  we  on  mountain 
trout.  If  the  grasshoppers  had  not  been  too  lively, 
there  would  have  been  trout  for  all. 

Anderson  Valley  is  about  eighteen  miles  long,  and 
half  to  three-fourths  of  a  mile  wide.  The  hills  on 
the  left  are  belted  with  a  heavy  growth  of  redwood, 
in  fine  contrast  with  the  treeless  hills  on  the  right, 
covered  with  a  heavy  crop  of  wild  oats,  all  golden- 
hued  in  the  August  sun.  The  farms  extend  across 
the  valley,  taking  a  portion  of  the  hills  on  either  side. 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  61 

There  has  not   been  a  Government  survey  made  in 
the  valley,  but  every  man  was  in  possession  of  his 
own,  and  did  not  covet  his  neighbor's.     Land-stealing 
requires  a  degree  of  energetic  rascality  and  enterprise 
wholly  wanting  here.     So  near,  and  yet  so  remote ! 
It  is  as  if  one  had  gone   a   two-days'  journey,  and 
had  somehow  managed  to  get  three  thousand  miles 
away.     I   heard  of  a  man  in  the  valley  who  took  a 
newspaper,  and  was  disposed  to  sympathize  with  him 
in  his  misfortune.      Why   should   the    spray   of  one 
of  the  dirty  surges  of  the  outside  world  break  over 
into  Arcadia?     Everybody  had  enough,  and  nobody 
had   anything   in    particular   to    do.      The    dwellings 
had    mud-and-stick    chimneys    on    the    outside,    and 
an    occasional   bake-oven    garnished   the    back   yard. 
At    the    little    tavern,    such    vegetables   as   strangers 
"hankered  for"  were  procured  at  the  coast — a  dis 
tance  of  twenty-six  miles.     An   old  man— he  might 
have  been  seventy,  with  a  margin  of  twenty  years — 
had  heard  of  the  rebellion,  and  lamented  the  abolition 
of  slavery — a  mischief  which  he  attributed  to  a  few 
fanatics.     The  world  would  never   get  on   smoothly 
until    the    institution    of    the    patriarchs    had    beer* 
restored. 


62  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

Oh,  venerable  friend,  dwelling  in  Arcadia !  there 
is  much  broken  pottery  in  this  world  which  is  past 
all  mending ;  and  more  which  is  awaiting  its  turn  to 
go  into  the  rubbish  heap.  All  that  was  discovered 
in  the  interior  of  a  Western  mound  was  a  few 
fragments  of  earthenware ;  for  the  rest,  Time  had 
beaten  it  all  back  to  the  dust.  The  images,  whether 
of  brass,  wood,  or  stone,  could  not  be  put  together 
by  any  of  the  cohesive  arts  of  our  time.  It  is 
appointed  for  some  men  to  go  through  the  world, 
club  in  hand,  and  to  break  much  of  the  world's 
crockery  as  they  go.  We  may  not  altogether  like 
them.  But  observe  that  the  men  who  are  stoned 
by  one  generation  are  canonized  by  the  next  There 
was  the  great  ebony  image  set  up  and  so  long 
worshipped  by  the  people  of  this  country.  How 
many  sleek,  fat  doctors  climbed  into  their  pulpits 
of  a  Sunday,  to  expatiate  on  the  scriptural  beauties 
of  this  image,  and  the  duty  of  reverencing  it  as 
something  set  up  and  continued  by  Divine  authority ! 
It  took  some  whacking  blows  to  bring  that  ebony 
idol  down ;  but  what  a  world  of  hypocrisy,  cruelty 
and  lies  went  into  the  dust  with  it !  Was  there 
ever  a  reformer — a  genuine  image-breaker— who  did 


A    WEEK   IN  MENDOC1NO.  63 

not,  at  one  time  or  another,  make  the  world  howl 
with  rage  and  pain?  Now,  truth  is  on  eternal 
foundations,  and  does  not  suffer,  in  the  long  run, 
by  the  world's  questionings  or  buffetings.  But  a 
consecrated  falsehood — whether  sacerdotal,  political, 
or  social— is  some  day  smitten,  as  the  giant  of  old, 
in  the  forehead,  and  falls  headlong.  After  all,  it 
is  by  revolution,  that  the  world  makes  most  of  its 
progress.  It  is  a  violent  and  often  disorderly  going 
out  of  an  old  and  dead  condition  by  the  regenerating 
power,  not  of  a  new  truth,  but  of  an  old  one  dug 
out  of  the  rubbish,  and  freshly  applied  to  the 
conscience  of  the  world.  How  many  truths  to-day 
lie  buried,  which,  if  dug  up,  world  set  the  world 
in  an  uproar !  The  image-breaker  often  heralds  a 
revolution.  He  overturns  the  idol,  of  whatever 
sort  it  is,  letting  the  light  into  some  consecrated 
falsehood — not  gently,  but  very  rudely,  and  with  a 
shocking  disregard  of  good  manners,  as  many  affirm. 
This  rough-shod  evangel,  with  the  rasping  voice, 
and  angular  features,  and  pungent  words — we  neither 
like  him  nor  his  new  gospel  at  first.  But  he  improves 
on  acquaintance,  and  some  day  we  begin  to  doubt 
whether  he  really  does  deserve  eternal  burning. 


64  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

The  world  is  full  of  cant;  it  infects  our  common 
speech.  The  odor  of  sanctity  and  the  form  of  sound 
words  are  no  nearer  the  living  spirit  than  are  those 
petrifactions  which  present  an  outline  of  men,  but 
never  again  pulsate  with  life.  Once  in  every  half 
a  century  it  is  needful  that  the  image-breaker  should 
come  along  and  knock  on  the  head  the  brainless 
images  of  cant.  The  sturdy  man  of  truthful  and 
resolute  speech !  How  irreverent  and  impious  he 
is !  He  makes  the  timid  hold  their  breath,  lest  he 
should  break  something  that  he  ought  not  to  touch. 
What  has  he  done,  after  all,  but  to  teach  men  and 
women  to  be  more  truthful,  more  courageous,  and 
less  in  love  with  shams. 

At  the  close  of  a  little  "exhortation,"  something 
like  this,  the  old  man  said — rather  dogmatically,  I 
thought — "  Stranger,  them  sentiments  of  yourn  won't 
do  for  this  settlement."  No  doubt  he  was  right. 
They  won't  do  for  any  settlement  where  they  build 
mud-and-stick  chimneys  on  the  outside  of  houses, 
and  fry  meat  within. 

It  is  good  to  get  into  a  forest  where  there  is  not 
a  mark  of  the  woodman's  axe.  The  redwood  is, 
after  all,  one  of  the  handsomest  coniferous  trees  in 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  65 

the  world.  It  grows  only  in  a  good  soil  and  a 
moist  climate.  There  may  be  larger  trees  of  the 
sequoia  family  in  the  Calaveras  group,  but  that 
presumption  will  bear  questioning.  A  guide  offered 
to  take  us  to  a  group  of  trees,  distant  about  a  day's 
ride,  the  largest  of  which  he  affirmed  was  seventy-five 
feet  in  circumference,  and  not  less  than  two  hundred 
and  sixty  feet  high.  Larger  trees  than  this  are 
reported  in  the  Coast  Range;  but  we  have  never 
yet  seen  a  redwood  which  measured  over  fifty  feet 
in  circumference,  nor  can  any  considerable  tree  of 
this  species  be  found  beyond  the  region  of  sandstone 
and  the  belt  of  coast  fogs. 

It  is  curious  to  note  tree  and  tribal  limitations. 
The  oak  and  the  redwood  do  not  associate  together, 
but  the  madrono  is  the  friend  of  both.  The  line 
of  redwood  limits  the  habitation  of  the  ground 
squirrel,  and  within  that  line  his  half-brother,  the 
wood  squirrel,  arches  his  tail  in  the  overhanging 
boughs,  and  barks  just  when  the  charge  is  out  of 
your  gun,  with  surprising  impudence.  There  is  the 
dominion  of  trees  and  animals  older  and  better 
defined  than  any  law  of  boundaries  which  has  yet 
got  into  our  statute-books.  Who  knows  but  races 


66  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

of  men  have  overleaped  boundaries  of  Divine 
ordination,  and  so  must  struggle  with  adverse  fate 
towards  nothing  more  hopeful  than  extinction.  The 
black  man  of  the  tropics,  planted  near  the  North 
Pole,  has  all  the  grin  taken  out  of  him,  and 
there  is  nothing  but  a  frigid  chatter  left.  There 
is  the  Indian  of  the  great  central  plains.  Have 
we  got  into  his  country,  or  has  he  got  into  ours  ? 
There  is  some  confusion  of  boundaries ;  and  the 
locomotive,  that  demon  of  modern  civilization,  is 
tracing  new  boundaries  with  a  trail  of  fire.  It 
is  possible  to  put  one's  finger  upon  the  weak  link 
in  the  logic  that  what  is  bad  for  the  Indian  is 
good  for  the  white  man. 

That  gopher  snake  just  passed  on  the  trail,  with 
a  young  rabbit  half  swallowed,  illustrates  near  enough 
how  one-half  of  the  world  is  trying  to  swallow  the 
other.  Observe,  too,  that  provision  of  nature,  by 
which  game  is  swallowed  larger  than  the  throat. 
It  is  the  smallest  half  of  the  world,  it  seems,  that 
is  trying  to  swallow  the  largest  half,  with  good 
prospect  of  success.  Half  a  dozen  men  have 
located  all  the  redwood  timber  upon  the  accessible 
streams  of  this  county.  Looking  coastward  along 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  67 

the  Novarro,  there  is  a  chain  of  townships  spanning 
this  stream  for  fifteen  miles  in  length,  owned  by  two 
men.  You  may  write  down  the  names  of  twenty 
men  who  are  at  this  moment  planning  to  swallow  all 
the  leading  business  interests  of  this  State.  They 
will  elect  Governors  and  Legislators.  It  don't 
matter  that  the  game  is  larger  than  the  throat.  In 
fact,  deglutition  is  already  pretty  well  advanced — as 
far,  at  least,  as  with  the  rabbit ;  but  with  this 
difference,  that  our  victims  will  be  made  to  grease 
themselves. 

If  the  day  is  preceded  by  three  or  four  hours  of 
moonlight,  you  will  not  often  find  a  deer  browsing 
after  the  sun  is  up.  His  work  is  done,  and  he  has 
lain  down  in  a  thicket  for  a  morning  nap.  It  was 
kind  of  the  log-driver  to  take  us  to  the  hills  at  the 
faintest  streak  of  dawn.  But  once  there,  he  slipped 
away  by  himself,  and  in  hardly  more  than  half  an 
hour  there  were  three  cracks  of  a  rifle.  He  came 
round  with  no  game.  We  had  seen  none.  It  was 
not  so  very  interesting  to  stand  as  a  sentinel  on  the 
hill-tops  in  the  chill  of  a  gray  morning,  yearning  for 
one's  breakfast,  and  wishing  all  the  deer  were  locked 
up  in  some  canyon  with  a  bottomless  abyss.  A  new 


68  A    WEEK  IN   MENDOCINO. 

stand  was  taken,  when  presently  our  friend  pointed 
out, the  line  of  a  deer's  back,  standing  half  hidden  by 
a  clump  of  rocks  of  nearly  the  same  color.  We 
must  both  fire  together,  and  make  a  sure  thing  of  the 
game.  There  was  a  sharp  report,  and  the  deer 
jumped  clear  of  the  rocks  and  disappeared.  He  fell 
in  his  tracks.  There  was  a  single  bullet-mark. 
But  our  friend  insisted  that  both  shots  had  taken 
effect  in  the  same  spot.  It  was  a  fawn,  not  more 
than  two-thirds  grown,  and  the  glaze  was  just  coming 
over  its  mild,  beseeching  eyes.  We  were  sorry  for  a 
moment  that  both  rifles  had  not  missed.  The  log- 
driver  shouldered  the  game,  but  disclaimed  all 
ownership.  A  little  farther  on  a  dead  buck  was 
skewered  over  a  limb,  and  still  farther  a  buck  and  a 
doe  were  suspended  in  the  same  way.  It  was  a  good 
morning's  work.  Every  shot  of  the  log-driver  had 
told.  A  slight  pang  of  remorse  was  succeeded  by  a 
little  glow  of  exultation.  Venison  is  good,  and 
a  hungry  man  is  carnivorous.  It  is  a  clear  case  that 
the  taking  of  this  one  deer  is  right.  The  log-driver 
must  satisfy  his  conscience  for  taking  three,  as  best 
he  can.  His  left  eye  had  a  merry  twinkle,  however, 
when,  on  handing  over  our  gun,  he  observed  that  the 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOOINO.  69 

cap  only  had  exploded,  and  that  the  load  placed  there 
on  setting  out  was  still  in  the  rifle  chamber.  Well, 
we  got  the  venison,  and  the  log-driver  told  his  sly 
story  with  a  keen  relish,  and  some  addenda. 

This  Arcadia  is  a  wondrously  human  place,  after 
all.  Borrowing  a  pony  to  ride  up  the  valley  three  or 
four  miles,  night  and  the  hospitality  of  a  neighbor 
overtook  us.  A  mist  settled  down  over  the  valley, 
and  under  the  great  overhanging  trees  not  a  trace  of 
the  road  could  be  seen.  "  Only  give  him  the  rein," 
said  the  settler,  "and  the  horse  will  go  straight 
home."  We  gave  him  the  rein.  An  hour,  by  guess, 
had  gone  by,  and  still  that  pony  was  ambling 
along,  snorting  occasionally  as  the  dry  sticks  broke 
suspiciously  in  the  edge  of  the  woods.  If  a 
grizzly  was  there,  his  company  was  not  wanted. 
Another  hour  had  gone  by.  Pray,  how  long  does  it 
take  a  pony  to  amble  ovef  three  miles  in  a  pitch-dark 
night  ?  Half  an  hour  later,  he  turned  off  to  the  left, 
crossed  the  valley,  and  brought  up  at  a  fence.  "  Give 
him  the  rein,"  was  the  injunction.  He  had  that,  and  a 
vigorous  dig  besides.  In  half  an  hour  more  he  was 
on  the  other  side  of  the  valley,  drawn  up  at  another 
fence.  It  was  too  dark  to  discover  any  house.  The 


70  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

true  destination  was  a  small  white  tavern  by  the 
roadside,  and  the  light  of  the  wood  fire  in  the  great 
fire-place  would  certainly  shine  through  the  window. 
The  vagabond  pony  took  the  spur  viciously,  and  went 
off  under  the  trees.  We  were  lost;  that  was  certain. 
It  was  getting  toward  midnight.  It  was  clear  that 
this  equine  rascal  was  not  going  home.  He  had 
traveled  at  least  four  hours,  and  was  now,  probably, 
several  miles  outside  the  settlement,  unless  he  had 
been  going  around  in  a  circle.  A  night  in  a 
wilderness,  enveloped  in  a  chilling  fog,  the  moisture 
of  which  was  now  dripping  from  the  trees,  with  the 
darkness  too  great  to  discover  when  the  horse  laid  his 
ears  back  as  a  sign  of  danger,  was  the  best  thing  in 
prospect.  Some  time  afterward  he  had  evidently 
turned  into  a  field,  and  a  few  minutes  later  was  in 
front  of  a  settler's  house.  A  ferocious  dog  made  it 
useless  to  dismount;  the  bars  were  jumped — the 
diminutive  cob  coming  down  on  his  knees,  and  a 
moment  afterward  bringing  up  under  the  window  of 
a  small  house.  The  window  went  up  slowly,  in 
answer  to  a  strong  midnight  salutation;  and  to  this 
day  it  is  not  quite  clear  whether  a  rifle  barrel,  a 
pitchfork,  or  a  hoe-handle  was  protruded  from  that 


A    WEEK  IN   MENDOGINO.  71 

window,  or  whether  all  this  was  an  illusion  born  of 
the  darkness  of  the  night. 

"  Well,  stranger,  how  did  you  get  in  here,  and  what 
do  you  want  ?"  asked  the  keeper  of  this  rural  castle. 

"  I  am  lost;  you  must  either  let  me  in,  or  come  out 
and  show  me  the  way." 

"  Likely  story  you're  lost !  Reckon  that  don't  go 
down  in  this  settlement.  You  ain't  lost  if  you're  here, 
are  you  ?  " 

"  Look  here !  I  borrowed  Jimson's  pony  to  go 
up  to  Dolman's,  and  started  back  after  nightfall. 
Dolman  said,  *  Give  him  the  reign,  and  he  would  go 
straight  back  to  the  tavern.'  I  gave  him  the  rein,  and 
he  has  been  going  for  the  last  four  or  five  hours, 
except  when  he  stopped  two  or  three  times  at  fences, 
until  he  brought  up  here." 

I  think  the  hoe-handle,  or  whatever  it  might  have 
been,  was  slowly  drawn  in.  A  match  was  touched  off 
on  the  casement,  making  about  as  much  light  as  a 
fire-fly.  The  settler,  shading  his  eyes,  threw  a 
glimmer  of  light  on  to  the  neck  of  the  iron-gray  pony. 

"  Yes;  that's  Jimson's  pony — that  are  a  fact." 

A  moment  after,  a  tall  figure  glided  out,  as  from  a 
hole  in  the  wall,  and  stood  by  the  horse. 


72  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

"  Now,  tell  me,  my  good  friend,  where  I  am,  what 
is  the  hour,  and  how  to  get  back  to  the  tavern." 

"  Well,  it  mought  be  nigh  onto  twelve  o'clock,  and 
you're  not  more'n  two  miles  from  Jimson's." 

"I  left  at  seven  o'clock  to  go  down  to  Jimson's, 
about  three  miles.  Where  have  I  been  all  this 
time?  If  I  have  been  nearly  five  hours  going  half 
of  three  miles,  how  shall  I  ever  get  back  to  the 
tavern  ?  " 

"Stranger,  you  don't  understand  all  the  ways  of 
this  settlement.  You  see  that's  the  pony  that  the. 
Jimson  boys  take  when  they  go  'round  courting  the 
gals  in  this  valley.  He  thought  you  wanted  to  go 
'round  kind  o'  on  a  lark;  and  that  pony,  for  mere 
devilment,  had  just  as  lief  go-a-courting  as  not. 
Stopped  out  yonder  at  a  fence,  did  he,  and  then  went 
across  the  valley,  and  then  over  to  the  foot-hills? 
Well,  he  went  up  to  Tanwood's  first,  and  being  as 
that  didn't  suit,  expect  he  went  across  to  Weather 
man's — he's  got  a  fine  gal — then  he  came  on  down  to 
Jennings' — mighty  fine  gal  there.  He's  been  there 
with  the  boys  lots  o'  times." 

"Well,  why  did  the  pony  come  over  here?" 

"You  see,  stranger,  I've  got  a  darter,  too." 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  73 

"  How  far  has  that  wandering  rascal  carried  me 
since  seven  o'clock?" 

"Nigh  upon  fifteen  miles,  maybe  twenty;  and  he'd 
a  gone  all  night,  if  you'd  let  him.  He  ain't  half  done 
the  settlement  yet." 

"  Then  I,  a  middle-aged  man  of  family,  have  been 
carried  'round  this  settlement  in  this  fog,  which  goes 
to  the  marrow-bones,  and  under  trees,  to  get  a  broken 
head,  and  on  blind  cross-trails,  for  twenty  miles  or  so, 
and  have  got  just  half-way  back;  and  all  because  this 
.pony  is  used  by  the  boys  for  larking?" 

"  I  reckon  you've  struck  it,  stranger.  Mustn't 
blame  that  hoss  too  much.  He  thought  you  was  on 
it.  Now,  it's  a  straight  road  down  to  Jimson's ;  but 
don't  let  him  turn  to  the  left  below.  Runnel  lives 
down  there,  and  he's  got  a  darter,  too.  She's  a 
smart  'un." 

A  few  minutes  later,  as  if  the  evil  one  was  in 
that  iron-gray,  he  took  the  left-hand  road.  But  he 
sprang  to  the  right,  when  the  rowel  went  into  his 
flank,  carrying  with  it  the  assurance  that  the  game 
was  up. 

It  was  past  midnight  when  that  larking  pony 
came  steaming  up  to  the  little  white  tavern.  The 


74  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOC1NO. 

smoldering  wood  fire  threw  a  flickering  light  into 
the  porch,  enough  to  see  that  the  ears  of  the  gamy 
little  horse  were  set  forward  in  a  frolicking  way, 
saying  clearly  enough :  "If  you  had  only  given 
me  the  rein,  as  advised,  we  would  have  made  a 
night  of  it." 

This  new  Arcadia  is  not  so  dull,  when  once  the 
ways  are  learned.  The  Jimson  boys  affirmed  that 
the  pony  was  just  mean  enough  to  play  such  a  trick 
on  a  stranger.  But  the  old  tavern  loft  rang  with 
merriment  until  the  small  hours  of  the  night.  It 
was  moderated  by  a  motherly  voice  which  came 
from  the  foot  of  the  stairs :  "  You  had  better  hush 
up.  The  stranger  knows  all  the  places  where  you've 
been  gallivanting  'round  this  settlement." 

When  the  sun  had  just  touched  the  hills  with 
a  morning  glory,  we  were  well  on  the  way  out  of 
the  valley.  Coveys  of  quails  with  half-grown  chicks 
were  coming  out  from  cover.  The  grouse  were 
already  at  work  in  the  wild  berry  patches  on  the 
side  of  the  mountain ;  one  or  two  larks  went  before 
with  an  opening  benediction,  while  the  glistening 
madrono  shed  its  shower  of  crystals.  Looking  back, 
there  was  a  thin,  blue  vapor  curling  up  from  the 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  75 

cabins.  We  were  reconciled  to  the  mud-and-stick 
chimneys  on  the  outsfde,  with  a  reservation  about 
the  fried  meat  within.  Peace  be  with  the  old  man 
who  said  our  speech  would  not  do  for  that  settlement. 
And  long  life  to  the  pony  that  mistook  our  sober 
mission  for  one  of  wooing  and  frolic  on  a  dark 
and  foggy  night. 


ft  IPDMO, 


UNDER    A    MADRONO. 


JEEHEEBOY,  the  Parsee,  says  that  the  highest 
conception  of  heaven  is  a  place  where  there  is 
nothing  to  do.  We  had  found  that  place  under 
an  oak,  yesterday,  and  had  conquered  a  great 
peace.  All  the  world  was  going  right,  for  once, 
no  matter  which  way  it  went.  But  opening  one 
eye,  the  filagree  of  sunlight,  sifting  through  the 
leaves,  disclosed  hundreds  of  worms  letting  them 
selves  down  by  gossamer  cables  toward  the  earth. 
Now  and  then  a  swallow  darted  under  the  tree, 
and  left  a  cable  fluttering  without  ballast  in  the 
breeze.  If  a  worm  is  ambitious  to  plumb  some 
part  of  the  universe,  there  is  no  philosophy  in  this 
world  which  will  insure  perfect  composure,  when 
it  is  clear  that  one's  nose  or  mouth  is  to  be  made 
the  "objective  point."  The  madrono  harbors  no 
vagabonds — not  a  leaf  is  punctured,  and  no  larva 
is  deposited  under  its  bark,  probably  for  the  reason 
that  the  outer  rind  is  thrown  off  every  year.  It 


8o  UNDER  A   MADRONO. 

is  not  kingly,  but  it  is  the  one  undefiled  tree  of 
the  forest.  When  its  red  berries  are  ripe,  the 
robins  have  a  thanksgiving-day ;  and  the  shy  wild 
pigeons  dart  among  its  branches,  unconsciously 
making  themselves  savory  for  the  spit 

Little  creepers  of  yerba  buena — the  sweetest  and 
most  consoling  of  all  herbs — interlace  underneath 
the  tree;  and  within  sight  the  dandelion  blooms, 
and  perfects  its  juices  for  some  torpid  liver ;  while 
under  the  fence  the  wild  sage  puts  forth  its  gray 
leaves,  gathering  subtile  influences  from  earth  and 
air  to  give  increase  of  wisdom  and  longevity.  If 
the  motherly  old  prophetess  of  other  days — she 
who  had  such  faith  in  God  and  simples — would 
come  this  way,  she  might  gather  herbs  enough  to 
cure  no  small  part  of  this  disordered  world. 

Take  it  all  in  all,  one  might  go  a  long  way 
and  not  find  another  more  perfect  landscape.  The 
dim,  encircling  mountains — one  with  the  ragged 
edges  of  an  extinct  volcano  still  visible ;  the  warm 
hill-sides,  where  vine,  and  fig,  and  olive  blend;  the 
natural  park  in  the  foreground,  begirt  with  clear 
waters  which  break  through  a  canyon  above — the 
home  of  trout,  grown  too  cunning  for  the  hook, 


UNDER  A    MADRONO.  81 

except  on  cloudy  days ;  the  line  of  perpetual  green 
which  the  rivulet  carries  a  mile  farther  down,  and 
loses  it  at  the  fretting  shore  line ;  the  village,  with 
its  smart  obtrusiveness  toned  by  distance ;  and  the 
infinite  reach  of  the  ocean  beyond — these  all  enter 
into  the  composition.  Well,  if  one  has  a  "stake 
in  the  soil"  just  here,  what  is  the  harm  in  coming 
to  drive  it  a  little  once  a  year,  and  to  enjoy  the 
luxury  of  wiping  out  such  scores  as  are  run  up 
on  the  debit  side  of  the  account?  Farming  for 
dividends  is  a  prosy  business ;  but  farming  with  a 
discount  may  have  a  world  of  sentiment  in  it. 

Have  you  quite  answered  the  question  yet,  whether 
the  instinct  of  certain  animals  is  not  reason  ?  Here 
are  a  dozen  quadrupedal  friends  that  can  demonstrate 
the  fact  that  they  have  something  more  than  instinct. 
There  is  that  honest  old  roan  horse  coming  from  the 
side-hill  for  his  lump  of  sugar.  He  knows  well 
enough  that  he  is  not  entitled  to  it  now.  He  is  only 
coming  to  try  his  chances.  But  give  him  an  hour 
under  the  saddle,  then  turn  him  out  and  see  if  he 
will  not  get  it.  Forgetting  once  to  give  him  his 
parting  lump,  he  came  back  again  at  midnight  from 
the  field,  and,  thrusting  his  head  into  an  open 


82  UNDER  A  MADRONO. 

window,  whinnied  such  a  blast  that  every  inmate  of 
the  farm-house  bolted  from  bed.  He  got  his  sugar, 
but  with  a  look  of  injured  innocence ;  and  ever  since 
has  been  dealt  with  in  good  faith.  Charley  is 
something  of  a  sportsman,  in  his  way.  In  the 
autumn  you  have  only  to  get  on  his  back  with  a  gun, 
and  he  trudges  off  to  places  where  the  quails  come 
out  from  covert  by  hundreds  into  the  little  openings 
in  the  chaparral.  The  horse  will  edge  up  very  near 
to  them;  when  he  drops  his  head,  that  is  his  signal 
to  fire.  If  lithe  enough,  you  will  pick  them  up 
without  leaving  the  saddle.  If  you  get  down  to 
gather  up  the  game  he  will  wait.  He  will  go  on  in 
his  own  way,  and  discover  the  birds  long  before  you 
can,  dropping  his  head  as  a  signal  at  just  the  right 
moment.  You  may  call  this  horse  sense,  but  it  is 
horse  reason — so  near  akin  to  human  reason  that 
there  might  be  some  trouble  in  tracing  the  dividing 
line.  So  much  for  this  old  cob,  who  smuggles  his 
honest  head  under  your  coat  for  sugar,  knowing  well 
enough  that  he  has  not  earned  it. 

Another  horse,  now  dead  and  happy,  I  hope,  in 
the  other  world,  stopped  one  dark  night,,  when  half 
way  down  a  steep  and  dangerous  hill.  There  was  a 


* 

UNDER  A    MADRONO.  83 

neighbor,  with  wife  and  babies,  in  the  carriage.  The 
horse  would  not  budge  an  inch  (not  under  the  whip), 
but  turned  his  head  around,  declaring,  as  plainly  as 
a  horse  could,  that  there  was  danger.  The  hold-back 
straps  had  broken,  and  the  pressure  of  the  carriage 
against  his  haunches,  which  sustained  the  entire  load 
from  the  top  of  the  hill,  had  started  the  blood  cruelly ; 
yet  there  he  stood,  resolutely  holding  back  wife  and 
babies  from  destruction,  choosing  even  to  suffer  the 
indignities  of  the  lash,  rather  than  that  injury  should 
come  to  one  of  his  precious  charge.  Did  that  horse 
have  reason  ?  I  rather  think  so ;  and  that  he  only 
needed  articulation  to  have  made  a  remonstrance 
quite  as  much  to  the  point  as  that  memorable  one 
made  by  Balaam's  ass. 

There  is  that  great  mastiff,  yawning  so  lazily, 'with 
power  to  hold  an  ox  at  his  will,  or  to  throttle  a  man. 
But  no  man  could  abuse  him  as  that  little  child  does 
every  day.  He  understands  well  enough  that  that 
lump  of  animated  dough  has  not  arrived  at  years  of 
discretion,  and  so  he  submits  to  all  manner  of 
cruelties  with  perfect  patience.  How,  with  mere 
instinct,  does  he  find  out  that  this  child  is  not  yet  a 
"moral  agent,"  and  that  all  these  pinchings,  and 


* 
84  UNDER  A    MADRONO. 

pluckings,  and  brandings  with  a  hot  poker  are  the 
irresponsible  freaks  of  the  young  rascal,  who  can  get 
off  harmless  by  pleading  the  Baby  Act  ?  This  honest 
dog  would  die  for  that  little  child  who  abuses  him 
every  day.  But  let  a  "Greaser"  come  to  take  so 
much  as  one  Brahma  pullet  from  the  roost,  and  he 
has  him  by  the  throat.  Does  instinct  account  for 
this  clear  perception  of  right  and  wrong  ? 

Some  clever  ways  he  has,  also,  of  winning  favor. 
He  has  got  it  into  his  head  that  a  certain  black  cat, 
that  sleeps  in  any  little  patch  of  sunlight  on  the 
kitchen  floor,  is  a  nuisance,  and  he  has  taken  a 
contract  to  abate  it.  But,  at  the  same  time,  he  is  on 
such  friendly  terms  with  pussy  that  he  would  not  hurt 
her  for  the  world.  Now  a  cat  knows,  by  instinct, 
how*  to  carry  her  kittens  and  not  hurt  them.  But  how 
did  this  dog  find  out  that  a  cat  can  be  carried  safely 
and  comfortably  by  the  nape  of  her  neck  ?  Very 
gently  he  takes  up  pussy  thus  by  her  neck,  carries  her 
off  a  quarter  of  a  mile  or  so  from  the  farm-house, 
sets  her  down,  and  then  comes  back  and  balances  the 
account  with  a  crust  of  bread,  or  any  odd  fragment  of 
meat,  by  way  of  lunch.  On  one  occasion  puss  got 
back  to  the  house  before  him.  It  bothered  him  that 


UNDER  A   MADRONO.  85 

the  case  amounted  so  nearly  to  a  "breach  of 
contract."  Taking  puss  once  more  by  the  neck, 
he  carried  her  across  a  creek,  and,  setting  her  down 
on  the  other  side,  returned  with  an  air  of  profound 
satisfaction.  He  got  an  extra  lunch  that  day.  But 
how  did  the  dog  know  that  a  cat  has  a  mortal 
aversion  to  crossing  a  stream  of  water?  If  that 
dog  had  no  more  than  mere  instinct,  pray,  what  is 
reason  ? 

His  "  predecessor "  was  a  foolish  dog,  not  more 
than  "half-witted."  But  even  his  canine  idiocy  gave 
way  to  gleams  of  reason.  He  became  an  expert  at 
driving  cattle  which  trespassed  on  the  farm.  If  the 
herd  scattered,  he  singled  out  the  leader,  laid  hold  of 
his  tail,  and  steered  him  as  well  as  a  yachtman  could 
steer  his  craft  through  an  intricate  channel.  After 
two  or  three  steers  had  been  piloted  in  this  way,  the 
rest  would  follow  the  leaders.  The  dog  had  hit  upon 
the  most  economical  plan  with  respect  to  time  and 
the  distance  to  be  traversed.  But,  one  day,  in 
managing  a  vicious  mustang-ox,  his  patience  was 
sorely  tried.  Jerking  him  suddenly  into  the  right 
path,  his  tail  parted!  The  whole  bovine  steering- 
apparatus  had  given  way,  as  completely  as  a  ship's 


86  UNDER  A  MADRONO. 

rudder  in  a  storm.  The  dog  never  could  quite 
comprehend  the  case.  He  took  himself  to  his 
kennel,  and  would  never  drive  cattle  afterward.  In 
fact,  he  was  never  the  same  dog  after  that  catastrophe. 
Only  instinct,  you  say  ?  But  then,  if  there  had  been 
an  asylum  for  canine  idiots,  that  dog  would  have  been 
entitled  to  a  ticket  of  admission.  His  exceptional 
foolishness  confirms  our  theory. 

Years  ago,  a  seven-year-old  brought  home  an 
insignificant  little  mongrel — a  mere  puppy — and 
pleaded  so  earnestly  for  its  toleration  that  the 
maternal  judgment  was  quite  overcome.  "Chip" 
was  always  a  nuisance,  but  understood  more  of 
human  speech  than  any  dog  "on  record."  If  the 
plans  of  the  day  were  discussed  in  his  hearing,  he 
comprehended  the  principal  movements  to  be  made. 
If  the  plan  excluded  his  company  he  knew  it,  and 
stole  away  a  half-hour  in  advance,  always  selecting 
the  right  road,  and  putting  in  his  mute  plea  for 
forbearance  in  just  the  nick  of  time  to  make  it 
available.  Half  a  dozen  times  was  that  dog  given 
away.  Yet  he  always  knew  the  day  on  which  the 
transfer  was  to  be  made,  and  on  that  particular 
day  he  could  never  be  found.  Now,  does  a  dog 


UNDER  A   MADRONO.  87 

that  understands  the  significance  of  human  speech, 
without  a  motion  or  gesture — not  only  interpreting 
but  connecting  a  series  of  ideas,  so  as  to  comprehend, 
in  advance,  plans  and  movements — find  out  all  these 
things  by  mere  instinct  ?  You  may  limit  and  qualify 
the  term,  but  it  is  reason,  after  all. 

Train  a  fox  ever  so  much,  and  you  cannot 
develop  anything  in  him  but  the  meanest  instincts. 
He  will  never  be  grateful,  and  never  honest,  nor 
can  any  terms  of  friendship  be  established  with 
him.  His  traditional  cunning  is  a  hateful  dishonesty. 
After  nearly  a  year  of  tuition  on  a  young  gray 
fox,  he  was  never  advanced  to  any  respectable 
degree  of  intelligence.  He  would  lie  at  the  mouth 
of  his  kennel  for  hours  to  confiscate  any  old  hen 
who  happened  to  pass  with  a  brood  of  chickens, 
disdaining,  the  while,  to  seize  any  plump  young 
rooster  that  passed  within  reach,  because  his 
diabolical  instinct  was  to  work  the  greatest  possible 
amount  of  mischief.  After  making  a  hundred  young 
chickens  orphans,  he  broke  his  chain  one  night  and 
left  for  the  forest.  The  thief  came  back  a  few 
nights  afterward  to  make  more  orphans.  That  gray 
pelt  tacked  up  on  the  rear  of  the  barn  is  his  obituary. 


88  UNDER  A   MADRONO. 

A  series  of  brilliant  experiments  that  were  to  have 
been  made  on  a  young  rattlesnake  turned  out  not  a 
whit  more  satisfactory.  The  reptile  was  not  "  raised  " 
just  here,  but  was  presented  by  a  friend.  His  teeth 
were  to  have  been  drawn,  after  which  various 
observations  were  to  have  been  made  concerning  his 
tastes  and  habits,  and  particularly  his  disposition 
when  not  provoked.  There  was  a  prospect  of  making 
an  honest  r-eptile  of  him.  He  was  put  in  an  empty 
barrel  for  the  night;  but  next  morning  two  half-breed 
Shanghaes  had  him,  one  by  the  tail  and  the  other 
by  the  head.  He  parted  about  midway,  each 
miserable  rooster  swallowing  his  half,  and  that  without 
even  the  excuse  of  a  morbid  appetite.  Since  that 
time  I  have  never  been  able  to  hate  a  young 
rattlesnake  half  as  much  as  that  detestable  breed  of 
Shanghaes. 

If  one  is  not  sick  unto  death,  what  more  effectual 
medication  can  be  found  than  the  sun,  and  the  south 
wind,  and  the  all-embracing  earth  ?  The  children  of 
the  poor  are  healthy,  because  they  sprout  out  of  the 
very  dirt.  The  sun  dispels  humors,  enriches  the 
blood;  and  the  winds  execute  a  sanitary  commission 
for  these  neglected  ones.  They  live  because  they  are 


UNDER  A    MADRONO.  89 

of  the  earth — earthy.  The  experiment  of  training  a 
race  of  attenuated  cherubs  in  the  shade,  and  making 
them  martyrs  to  clean  aprons  and  clean  dickeys,  is  a 
failure.  There  is  a  vast  amount  of  postmortem 
doggerel  that  never  would  have  been  written  if  the 
cherubs  had  only  made  dirt-pies,  and  had  eaten  freely 
of  them.  Observe  the  strong  tendency  in  men,  even 
of  culture,  to  court  the  wildness  and  rude  energy  of 
savage  life.  Let  one  sleep  on  the  ground,  in  a  mild 
climate,  for  three  months,  and  even  the  man  who 
reads  Homer  is  content,  often,  to  sleep  there  the  rest 
of  his  lifetime.  It  is  better  to  tame  the  savage  rather 
cautiously,  and  with  some  reserve,  for  if  he  be 
eliminated  wholly,  the  best  relations  with  Nature  are 
broken  off.  Evermore  we  are  seeking  for  something 
among  books  and  pictures,  and  in  the  babblings  of 
polite  society,  that  we  do  not  find.  When  the  blood 
is  thin,  and  the  body  has  become  spiritualized,  then  it 
is  easy  to  ascend  to  the  clouds,  as  balloons  go  up,  and 
hold  high  discourse;  while  the  world,  under  our  feet, 
teeming  with  its  myriad  lives,  pulsating  even  to  the 
smallest  dust,  and  all  glorified,  if  we  will  behold  it, 
is  not  taken  into  fellowship,  its  speech  interpreted 
nor  its  remedial  forces  marshaled  as  friends,  to  back 


90  UNDER  A   MADRONO. 

our  halting  and  troubled  humanity.  It  has  taken 
almost  six  thousand  years  to  find  out  that  a  handful 
of  dry  earth  will  heal  the  most  cruel  wound.  In  the 
day  of  our  mortal  hurt  we  do  but  go  back  to  the 
earth,  believing  that  in  the  ages  to  come  we  shall  go 
forth  again,  eternally  renewed. 

There  are  islands  in  the  Pacific  where  birds  and 
beasts,  and  every  living  thing,  are  free  from  fear  of,  or 
even  a  suspicion  of  wrong,  from  man.  But  where 
civilization  is  introduced,  there  is  a  bridgeless  gulf 
between  us  and  all  orders  of  existence  beneath. 
There  is  a  half-articulate  protest  coming  up,  that  this 
thing  called  modern  civilization  is  treacherous,  cruel, 
and  dishonest.  For  a  century  its  evangels  have 
proclaimed  its  mission  of  love.  But  humanity  has 
wrestled  with  its  own  kind  more  fiercely  than  ever 
before.  It  is  decent  enough  to  kill  each  other,  if 
done  according  to  some  conventional  code.  But  it  is 
vulgar  to  eat  our  enemies;  and  so  the  custom,  in 
polite  society,  has  fallen  into  disuse. 

Is  it  a  wonder  that  all  animate  nature  is  accusatory 
and  suspicious  ?  Little  by  little  we  win  it  back  to  our 
confidence.  The  birds  that  were  silent  and  moody, 
because  of  our  intrusion,  give,  after  a  while,  little 


UNDER  A    MADRONO.  91 

fragments  of  song,  and  hop  down  on  the  lower 
branches,  holding  inquisitory  councils.  A  lizard  runs 
along  upon  a  fallen  tree,  each  time  getting  a  little 
nearer;  he  has  the -handsomest  of  eyes,  but  not  a 
good  facial  expression;  yet  so  lithe  and  nimble,  and 
improves  so  on  acquaintance  that  we  shall  soon  be 
friends.  Darting  his  tongue  through  an  insect,  he 
comes  a  little  nearer,  as  though  he  would  ask,  "  Do 
you  take  your  prey  in  that  way?"  Two  orioles  have 
swung  up  their  hammock  to  the  swaying  branch  of  a 
chestnut  oak.  They  do  not  swing  from  the  madrono, 
because  its  branches  are  too  stiff  and  unyielding. 
They  have  been  in  trouble  for  half  an  hour.  The 
robins  were  in  trouble  earlier  in  the  day;  a  dozen  of 
them  went  after  a  butcher-bird,  and  whipped  him 
honestly  and  handsomely.  There  is  a  little  brown 
owl,  sitting  on  a  dry  limb,  not  a  hundred  yards  off. 
He  came  into  the  world  with  a  sort  of  antediluvian 
gravity  that  never  bodes  any  good.  If  the  solemn 
bird  could  only  sing,  he  would  allay  suspicion  at  once. 
Never  has  a  song-bird  a  bloody  beak.  Your  solemn  - 
visaged  men  of  frigid  propriety,  out  of  whose  joyless 
natures  a  song  or  a  laugh  never  breaks,  can  thrust 
their  .talons  into  human  prey,  if  but  occasion  only 


92  UNDER  A    MADRONO. 

serve,  as  this  owl  will  into  some  poor  bird  just  at  the 
going  down  of  the  sun. 

The  bees  come  and  go  sluggishly,  either  because 
there  is  an  opiate  in  the  sweets  of  the  wild  poppy, 
which  flames  on  the  hill-side,  or  because  there  is  no 
winter  season  here  demanding  great  reserves  of  honey. 
Nearly  all  of  them  turn  vagabonds  and  robbers  in 
this  country.  The  line  of  departure  is  toward  a 
redwood,  which  is  dry  at  the  top,  a  knot-hole 
evidently  serving  for  ingress  and  egress.  If  their 
own  stores  fail,  they  will  go  to  some  tame  hive  and 
fight  their  more  honest  neighbors  and  plunder  all 
their  reserves.  Even  a  bee-hive  is  no  longer  a  symbol 
of  lawful  industry,  since  the  bees  have  become  knaves, 
and  do  not  even  rob  in  a  chivalrous  way.  But  they, 
in  turn,  will  be  despoiled  by  some  vagabond  who 
has  carved  his  initials  on  every  "  suspected "  tree 
hereabout.  It  is  a  world  of  reprisals  after  all.  The 
strong  prey  upon  the  weak;  and  they,  in  turn,  after 
passing  virtuous  resolutions  of  indignant  dissent,  spoil 
those  who  are  weaker  still.  It  is  a  hard  necessity. 
But  how  can  the  fox  do  without  the  hare,  the  hawk 
without  a  thrush,  or  he  without  a  beetle,  or  the  beetle 
without  his  fly  ?  Strong  nations  capture  the  weak ; 


UNDER  A   MADRONO.  93 

and  there  are  weak  and  pitiful  races  of  men,  with  no 
force  or  vitality  to  found  nations  and  dynasties. 
These  only  wait  to  be  plucked  up  by  the  stronger,  as 
so  much  human  rubbish  waiting  for  flood  and  flame. 
High-breeding  may  degenerate  races.  Your  thorough 
bred  cattle,  however,  take  the  premiums  at  the  great 
fairs  of  the  world.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the 
ancestral  pedigree  should  be  a  long  one.  But  so  far 
as  men  and  women  are  thoroughbred  with  respect  to 
muscle  and  brain,  will  they,  consciously  or  otherwise, 
carry  with  them  the  sceptre  of  dominion  and  conquest. 
They  will  crowd  out  inferior  races,  either  by  sheer 
force  or  by  some  trick  of  diplomacy.  An  Indian 
exchanging  territory  for  blankets,  or  sending  his 
arrow  against  an  iron-clad,  finds  it  a  losing  business 
always.  We  write  him  up  handsomely  in  romances, 
but  extinguish  him  cruelly  with  rifle  and  sabre. 

There  was  a  halo  lingering  about  the  dome  of  the 
old  Mission  Church,  in  the  distance;  its  cross  was 
glorified  just  before  the  sun  rested  its  disk  upon  the 
ocean.  The  hard  outlines  of  the  mountains  softened, 
and  took  on  a  purple  hue;  the  white  doves  came 
down  out  of  the  clouds,  and  clustered  about  the 
gables;  a  light  flickered  like  a  fire-fly  in  the  light- 


94  UNDER  A   MADRONO. 

house  half  a  league  beyond  the  church,  and  another 
from  a  window  of  the  farm-house  near  by.  That 
skipper,  wide  off,  may  take  his  bearings  from  the 
light  on  the  shore.  But  at  night-fall,  the  wide- 
spreading  roof  is  more  hospitabfe  that  even  this 
branching  madrono.  And  there  is  no  philosophy 
that  could  not  be  improved  by  June  butter,  redolent 
of  white  clover,  with  a  supplement  of  cream  half  an 
inch  thick. 


MY  01]  THE  LOS  SftTO, 


A  DAY  ON  THE   LOS   GATOS. 


THE  brightest  stream  which  bubbles  out  of  the 
mountains  in  the  Coast  Range,  and  loses  itself  on 
the  plains  of  Santa  Clara,  ought  to  have  had  a 
more  poetical  name.  Its  feline  etymology  is  probably 
owing  to  the  fact  that  as  many  wild  cats  rendezvous 
about  its  headwaters  as  are  congregated  within  the 
same  limits  in  any  place  on  these  mountain-slopes. 
This  superabundance  of  savage  life,  which  so  incon 
tinently  runs  to  white  teeth  and  claws,  is  an  indication 
that  there  is  much  game  in  this  region.  Pussy 
likes  a  good  bill  of  fare,  and  makes  it  up  of  hares, 
cotton-tail  rabbits,  ground-squirrels,  quails,  doves,  and 
a  great  number  of  singing  birds,  not  omitting  an 
occasional  rattlesnake,  which  is  killed  so  deftly  that 
there  is  no  chance  for  a  venomous  bite.  If  the 
unlovely  creatures  had  been  more  industrious  in  this 
line,  the  thrushes  would  have  had  a  better  chance, 
and  that  dry,  reedy  sound  in  the  brush — the  one 
drawback  to  the  pleasure  of  crawling  on  all-fours 


98  A   DAY  ON  THE  LOS  OATOS. 

through    the    chaparral — would   not    have   started   a 
cold   chill   along   the    spine    quite    so    often. 

That  little  square-looking  dog,  loaned  by  a  settler 
at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  with  his  ears  split  in 
a  dozen  places  in  his  encounters  with  these  animals, 
goes  along  for  the  fun  and  excitement  of  another 
clinch  with  his  old  enemy.  The  warfare  is,  after 
all,  conducted  on  scientific  principles.  The  wild  cat 
is  as  strong  as  a  young  tiger,  and  you  see  by  the 
depth  of  the  shoulders  and  the  size  of  the  head,  that 
he  will  fight  terribly.  He  does  not  run  well,  and 
cannot  catch  a  hare  in  any  other  way  than  by  stealth. 
The  dog  runs  him  to  a  tree ;  the  cat  ascends  to 
the  highest  strong  limb,  goes  out  on  that,  and  gets 
an  adjustment  by  which  the  smallest  possible  mark 
will  be  presented  for  a  rifle  or  pistol-shot.  If  you 
want  to  do  the  handsome  thing,  let  the  head  alone ; 
for  that  is  well  defended  by  the  limb  on  which  it 
is  resting.  The  wind  blowing  strong  at  an  oblique 
angle  to  your  line,  will  make  a  difference  of  at 
least  an  inch  in  sending  that  light  ball  180  feet; 
it  will  also  drop  from  a  right  ascending  line  nearly 
two  inches.  Remember,  a  shrewd  woodsman  never 
forgets  these  things.  Getting  your  margin  adjusted, 


A   DAY  ON   THE  LOS  GATOS.  99 

plant  the  ball  into  the  shoulder,  just  under  the  spine. 
He  will  drop  from  the  tree  with  only  one  foreleg 
in  fighting  condition.  The  dog  is  on  his  back  in 
a  second,  and  there  will  be  the  liveliest  rough-and- 
tumble  fight  you  have  seen  in  many  a  day.  Never 
mind  the  wild  screams  that  echo  from  the  canyon. 
That  fellow's  time  has  come.  He  will  not  steal 
your  best  game-chicken  out  of  the  top  of  the  tree 
again. 

The  dog  has  won  the  battle ;  but  he  has  got  some 
ugly  scars  along  his  sides  and  flank.  Observe  that, 
overheated  as  he  is,  he  does  not  rush  into  that  clear 
stream.  He  takes  his  bath  in  that  shallow  spring 
with  a  soft  mud  bottom.  Note  how  he  plasters 
himself,  laying  the  wounded  side  underneath,  and 
then,  setting  down  on  his  haunches,  buries  all  the 
wounded  parts  in  the  ooze..  The  mud  has  medicinal 
properties.  The  dog  knows  it.  No  physician  could 
make  so  good  a  poultice  /or  the  wounds  of  a  cat's 
claws  as  this  dog  has  made  for  himself.  Pray,  if  you 
had  been  clawed  in  that  way  by  either  feline  or 
feminine,  would  you  have  found  anything  at  the 
bottom  of  your  book  philosophy  so  remedial  as  this 
dog  has  found. 


ioo  A   DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS. 

Now  that  this  striped  rascal  has  had  his  light  put 
out,  it  is  hard  to  justify  the  act  after  all.  He  was  a 
thief,  stealthy,  cowardly,  blood-loving,  and  cruel. 
But  then  his  education  had  been  neglected.  And 
while  his  moral  sentiments  had  been  lapsing  for 
generations,  note  what  a  gain  there  has  been  in  his 
animal  development;  for  he  is  next  of  kin  to  the 
common  house-cat.  You  cannot  upset  this  theory 
by  pointing  to  his  abbreviated  tail.  How  long  do 
you  suppose  it  is  since  every  one  of  your  hair-splitting 
casuists  had  a  tail  more  than  twice  as  long  as  this 
fellow,  whose  descendants,  in  two  generations  more, 
may  have  none  at  all?  Taking  him  up  by  his 
enormous  jowls,  rounding  off  a  head  suggesting 
diabolical  acquisitiveness,  it  is  only  necessary  to  carry 
a  Darwinian  rush-light  in  the  other  hand  to  go 
straight  to  the  right  man  and  say :  Here  is  a  link  in 
your  chain  of  development,  only  three  removes  from 
the  point  you  have  reached.  What  a  pity  that  this 
diminution  of  tail  and  claws  does  not  signify  a 
corresponding  decrease  of  cruel  and  stealthy  circum 
vention  !  You  wag  your  tail  approvingly  to  this 
proposition,  Samson.  But  this  business  of  extermi 
nating  pests  had  better  cease.  Because,  if  carried 


A   DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS.  101 

out  honestly,  it  would  be  inconvenient  to  some 
thousands  of  men  and  women  who  are  just  now 
cumbering  the  world  to  no  purpose.  It  goes  against 
the  grain  mightily  to  admit  that  a  wild  cat  might  ever 
become  an  angel ;  but  if  there  is  any  obscure  law 
tending  to  such  a  result,  it  is  better  to  interfere  with 
it  as  little  as  possible.  If  both  moral  and  physical 
perfectibility  are  only  a  question  of  time,  the  fellow 
who  sells  his  fiery  potations  close  by  that  sweet 
mountain  spring,  and  is  never  conscious  of  its 
perpetual  rebuke,  ought  to  have  a  margin,  at  least,  of 
five  million  years. 

There  is  a  cleft  in  the  mountain,  about  ten  miles  to 
the  southwest  of  Santa  Clara.  That  engineering  was 
done  by  the  Los  Gates.  Entering  this  defile,  the 
stage  road  winds  along  the  mountain  side  for  six  or 
seven  miles,  and  then  turns  to  the  right  and  goes 
down  the  mountain  slope  to  Santa  Cruz.  But  as  long 
as  there  are  any  stage  roads  in  sight,  or  signs  of 
abrading  wheels,  you  will  find  no  trout.  Turning  to 
the  left  and  following  the  ridge,  at  the  hight  of  about 
two  thousand  feet,  a  walk  of  three  or  four  miles 
brings  one  to  a  point  where  civilization  runs  out  with 
the  disappearance  of  the  last  trail.  That  mountain 


102  A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS. 

lifting  its  dark  crest  so  kingly  into  the  clouds,  is  Loma 
Prieta,  the  highest  crest  of  the  Coast  Range.  On  the 
north  side  of  that  intervening  slope,  and  nearly  a 
thousand  feet  higher,  you  will  find  the  source  of  the 
Los  Gatos.  It  is  six  miles  away.  There  a  great 
fountain  bubbles  out  of  the  mountain  side,  and  the 
stream,  clear  and  strong,  and  singing  for  very  joy, 
goes  bounding  on  to  the  gorges  below.  The  upper 
stream  has  never  been  defiled  by  sawdust;  and  no 
lout  in  shining  boots  ever  went  up  to  its  head.  It  is 
best  to  go  into  camp  here  and  take  a  fresh  start  the 
next  morning.  In.  the  early  dawn — before  the  sun 
glares  on  the  land  and  sea — town  and  hamlet,  valley 
and  mountain,  have  a  morning  glory,  which  it  were 
better  not  to  miss.  Looking  oceanward,  the  fir  and 
the  redwood  send  up  their  spires  of  eternal  green 
from  all  the  valleys.  At  midnight,  the  full  moon  was 
flooding  all  the  mountain  top  with  light,  and  was 
apparently  shining  upon  the  still  ocean,  which  had 
come  quite  to  the  base  of  the  mountain.  The  fog 
had  come  in  during  the  night,  but  hugged  the  earth 
so  closely  that  every  hillock  appeared  like  an  island 
resting  on  the  calm,  white  sea.  All  night  long  the 
moon  shone  on  this  upper  stratum,  revealing  with 


A   DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS.  103 

wonderful  distinctness  the  tops  of  the  tallest  red 
woods,  while  the  trunks  appeared  to  be  submerged. 
It  was  not  easy  to  dispel  the  illusion  that  one  with 
a  skiff  might  have  paddled  from  wooded  islet  to 
another,  treading  a  thousand  intricate  channels, 
drifting  past  the  homes  of  strange  peoples,  whose 
lives  were  symbolized  by  this  serene  and  silent  sea. 
But  the  illusion  would  not  hold  water,  when,  at  early 
dawn,  a  clumsy  two-horse  wagon  went  lumbering 
down  the  mountain  and  disappeared  under  this  white 
stratum.  When  the  sun  came  up,  all  the  ragged  and 
fleecy  edges  rolled  in  upon  the  center,  and  there  was 
a  silent  seaward  march,  until  at  mid-day  the  fog 
banked  up  with  perpendicular  walls,  about  a  dozen 
miles  from  the  land.  A  little  farther  down  the  valley 
the  trees  were  dripping  with  the  moisture  of  this 
migratory  ocean.  But  not  a  drop  was  collected  on 
the  glistening  leaves  of  the  madrono  which  gave  us 
friendly  shelter  that  night.  It  was  a  good  place 
enough  to  sleep;  but  if  one  is  to  take  an  observation 
every  half-hour  during  the  night,  he  will  have  no 
difficulty  in  getting  up  at  the  call  of  the  birds. 

The  first  sound  heard  in  the  morning  was  the  yelp 
of  a   miserable   coyote.      The    intrusive   rascal   had 


104  A    DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS. 

pitched  his  key  in  advance  of  thrush,  or  lark,  or 
robin.  It  was  easy  enough  to  silence  him  with  a 
shotgun;  but  as  the  birds,  also,  would  have  been 
frightened  into  silence,  this  ill-favored  vagabond  was 
moderated  by  pitching  two  stones  at  him,  with  no 
other  result  than  securing  a  lame  shoulder  for  a  week. 
The  thing  was  entirely  overdone;  and  if  the  fellow 
had  any  perception  of  the  ridiculous,  he  went  into 
his  hole  and  laughed  for  the  space  of  half  an  hour. 

The  altitude  was  too  great  for  the  home  of  robin 
and  linnet.  But  the  woodpeckers  went  screaming  by, 
land  the  shy  yellow-hammers  flitted  noiselessly  from 
tree  to  tree ;  while,  in  the  thicket,  the  cock  quails 
were  calling  out  the  coveys  for  an  early  breakfast. 
Two  deer  had  come  down  the  mountain  slope,  and 
finally  halted  at  half  rifle-shot,  looking  stupidly  at  the 
camp-fire.  If  they  understood  the  statute  made  in 
their  behalf,  they  were  perfectly  safe.  But  Samson, 
who  had  stood  for  three  minutes  with  one  fore-leg 
raised  in  an  intensely  dramatic  way,  made  a  spring  at 
last,  and,  without  warrant  of  law,  ran  them  down  the 
canyon;  arid  ten  minutes  later  they  were  seen  going 
up  the  opposite  slope,  but  with  many  redundant 
antics,  indicating  contempt  for  the  cur  which  had 


A   DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS.  105 

sought  to  worry  them.  Later  in  the  day  three  or  four 
more  were  seen,  and  one  half-grown  fawn  was 
following  the  roe,  the  latter  finally  taking  the  wind 
and  bounding  off  handsomely,  while  the  fawn,  less 
keen  of  scent,  turned  about  and  looked  inquiringly, 
without  any  clear  perception  of  danger.  It  was 
evident  that  so  long  as  the  fawn  depends  upon  the 
mother  for  protection,  it  has  not  a  very  keen  scent 
nor  a  quick  apprehension  of  approaching  danger. 
These  are  only  perfected  later,  when  the  fawn  is  left 
to  care  for  itself.  The  cub  is  very  foolish;  the  young 
fox  has  no  more  of  cunning  than  a  common  puppy; 
and  a  young  ground-squirrel,  in  time  of  danger,  rashly 
bobs  his  head  out  of  the  hole  long  before  his 
venerable  parents  venture  to  take  an  observation. 
We  might  have  had  a  smoking  haunch  of  venison 
that  morning,  but  it  would  have  lacked  that  fine 
moral  quality  which  the  game  law  withheld.  If  you 
want  to  know  the  terrible  power  of  temptation, 
breakfast  on  bacon  when  two  deer  are  within 
rifle-shot. 

It  took  not  less  than  three  hours  to  work  through 
the  interminable  thickets,  and  to  climb  over  the 
rocks,  and  gain  a  place  for  the  first  cast  of  a  line. 


io6  A   DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS. 

These  mountain  trout  strike  quick  or  not  at  all. 
There  is  a  delicious,  tingling  sensation  when  the 
fellows  jump  from  the  eddies  and  swirls  more  than 
a  foot  out  of  water.  You  need  not  spit  on  your 
bait  for  luck,  when  the  fish  are  breaking  water  for 
the  hook,  and  the  dark  pools  are  alive  with  them ; 
not  very  large,  but  with  keen  mountain  appetites, 
having  the  brightest  colors,  hard  of  flesh,  and  gamy. 
Well,  yes,  here  is  where  the  fun  comes  in,  after 
crawling  for  more  than  two  miles  through  the  brush, 
and  over  jagged  rocks.  Not  the  least  of  it  is  to 
observe  that  H has  gone  daft  from  over-excite 
ment,  and  is  throwing  his  fish  into  the  tree-tops. 
What  with  the  moon  shining  on  his  face  last  night, 
the  deer  coming  down  to  tantalize  him,  and  these 
mountain  trout  jumping  wild  for  the  hook,  there 
is  just  as  much  lunacy  as  it  is  safe  to  encounter  at 
this  altitude. 

The  stream  holds  out  well,  and  has  not  perceptibly 
diminished  in  a  linear  ascent  of  the  mountain-side 
of  nearly  three  miles.  A  never-failing  reservoir,  at 
an  altitude  of  perhaps  twenty-three  hundred  feet, 
creates  the  main  branch;  while  lower  down  there 
is  a  constant  augmentation  from  runnels,  up  some 


A   DAY  ON   THE  LCS  GATOS.  107 

of  which  the  trout  find  their  way.  It  is  best  not  to 
slight  these  little  branches ;  for  occasionally  the  water 
sinks,  running  underground  for  awhile,  and  then 
reappearing,  so  that  a  succession  of  pools  is  formed, 
which  arrest  the  fish;  and,  having  nothing  to  eat, 
they  prey  upon  each  other,  until  rarely  more  than 
two  or  three  remain,  and  sometimes  a  solitary  fish 
is  left — he  having  ate  up  all  his  poor  relations,  and 
thus  supplied  their  wants  and  his  own.  There  is 
nothing  very  strange  in  this  piscatory  economy,  after 
all.  That  bald-headed  man,  who  lost  his  balance, 
and  slid  down  a  shelving  rock  nearly  twenty  feet 
into  the  pool,  and  went  out  on  the  other  side,  with 
a  solitary  fish  dangling  at  his  hook,  and  a  most 
unearthly  yell,  is  playing  the  same  game  in  a  business 
pool.  There  are  more  in  it  than  can  possibly 
succeed.  One  by  one,  he  will  eat  up  the  others 
and  become  a  millionaire.  If  a  bigger  fish  in-  the 
pool  eats  him,  it  is  only  a  slight  variation  of  chances, 
which  the  commercial  ethics  of  the  times  will  just 
as  heartily  approve.  You  have  made  that  pool 
desolate ;  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  yell  so  as  to 
disturb  the  universe  over  a  half-pound  trout.  If 
ever,  O  friend,,  you  should  have  the  luck  .to  be 


io8  A   DAY  ON   THE  LOS  GATOS, 

drawn  out  of  a  pool  thus,  will  there  be  no  yelling 
in  the  subterranean  caverns  ? 

There  is  no  heroism  in  jerking  every  fish  out 
of  the  stream,  just  because  they  have  keen  mountain 
appetites.  Moreover,  as  the  rays  of  the  sun  become 
vertical,  light  is  thrown  into  the  pools  and  eddies, 
and  the  bites  are  languid  and  less  frequent.  An 
hour  before  sunset  they  will  be  as  brisk  as  ever. 
But  a  hundred  trout  are  enough  for  one  morning, 
and  too  many,  since  no  one  is  willing  to  carry  them 
down  the  mountain.  A  year  ago,  an  enthusiastic 
friend  found  the  headwaters  of  the  Butano,  just 
over  the  ridge,  toward  the  coast.  Having  cut  his 
way  out  of  the  San  Lorenzo  Valley,  making  his 
own  trail  for  seven  miles  or  more,  he  cast  in  his 
hook  where,  he  stoutly  affirmed,  no  fisherman  had 
ever  preceded  him..  The  falls  in  several  places  have 
formed  deep  basins  in  the  soft,  white  sandstone. 
There  this  enthusiastic  fisherman  found  his  heaven 
for  two  hours,  until  night  began  to  close  in  upon 
him.  Did  he  go  into  a  tree-top  for  the  night,  and 
pull  his  two  hundred  trout  up  after  him  ?  No ;  but 
.he  left  them  in  a  heap,  and  crept  down  the  mountain 
at  dusk,  his  pace  quickened  a  little  by  the  sight  of  a 


A   DAY  ON  THE  LOS  OATOS.  109 

fresh  bear-track.  I  do  not  think  an  honest  bear, 
made  fully  acquainted  with  such  sacrilegious  conduct, 
would  eat  a  man,  or  so  much  as  smell  of  him. 

All  day  long  the  perspective  has  been  growing 
broader  and  richer,  until  these  diminutive  little  fish, 
destined  to  be  swallowed  with  a  single  snap  of  the 
jaws — even  as  they  sought  to  snap  the  wriggling 
worm — have  become  a  minor  incident  in  the 
crowding  events  of  the  day.  For  an  hour  after  dawn 
the  only  outlook  was  into  the  Santa  Clara  Valley. 
But  the  morning  was  cold ;  the  thin  gray  smoke 
went  up  silently  into  the  heavens  from  here  and  there 
a  farm-house  ;  across  the  valley  a  low  column  of  mist . 
clung  to  the  foothills  and  rolled  sullenly  away.  The 
rank  vegetation  of  early  spring,  broken  occasionally 
by  the  plowed  fields,  had  all  the  abruptness  of  con 
trast  seen  in  the  patchwork  of  a  bedquilt ;  and  in  the 
chill  of  the  dawn  was  not  a  whit  more  pleasing  to  the 
eyes  But  an  hour  later  the  sunlight  filled  all  the 
.  valley ;  the  harsher  tints  of  the  morning  were  melted 
into  the  more  subdued  glory  of  the  spring,  and  one 
could  fancy  that  the  scent  of  almond  blossoms  came 
up  the  mountain,  mingled  with  the  grosser  incense 
of  the  mold  and  tilth  of  many  fields.  Even  the 


no  A   DAY  ON  THE  LOS  OATOS. 

solitary  stunted  pine  far  up  the  mountain  was 
dropping  down  its  leafy  spicula,  like  javelins  cast 
aslant,  and  the  last  year's  cones  fell  with  a  rattle,  like 
hand  grenades  cast  from  some  overhanging  battle 
ment.  Life  was  crowding  death  even  here,  and  the 
pine  was  freshening  its  foliage,  as  certain  of  spring 
time  as  the  alder  just  shaking  out  its  tassels  by 
the  river  bank.  Away  to  the  southwest  the  Bay 
of  Monterey,  with  its  breadth  of  twenty  miles,  was 
reduced  to  a  little  patch  of  blue  water ;  and  wide 
off  there  was  a  faint  trail  of  smoke  along  the 
horizon — the  sign  that  a  steamer  was  going  down  the 
coast  for  puncheons  of  wine  and  fleeces  of  wool. 

The  glass  reveals  the  dome  of  a  church  at  Santa 
Cruz,  looking  a  little  larger  than  a  bird  cage  set  down 
by  the  ocean.  The  famous  picture  on  the  ceiling  of 
the  old  adobe  church  disappeared  when  the  stormy 
melted  down  the  mud  walls.  If  the  perspective  was 
faulty,  the  picture  had  a  lively  moral  for  bad  Indians. 
But  something  better  was  found,  not  many  years  ago 
(so  the  village  tradition  runs),  in  one  of  the  lofts  in 
an  old  store-room  near  by.  The  Padre  going  up 
there  with  the  village  sign  painter,  to  hunt  for  some 
half-forgotten  thing,  drew  out  of  the  lumber  a 


A   DAY  ON  THE  LOS  OATOS.  in 

lot  of  blurred  and  musty  canvas,  giving  it  to  his 
friend.  The  latter  hastened  home  and,  unrolling 
his  canvas,  saw  that  upon  one  side  there  had  once 
been  a  picture.  But  the  pigment  was  now  only 
powdered  atoms,  which  a  feather  would  sweep  away. 
Oiling  a  new  canvas,  he  laid  it  upon  the  back  of 
the  picture,  and  the  oil  striking  through,  the  first 
process  of  restoration  was  safely  accomplished. 
Then  the  surface  of  the  picture  was  carefully  cleaned. 
The  sign  painter  quietly  hung  up  his  picture,  satisfied 
that  there  was  an  infinite  distance  between  it  and  a 
common  daub.  The  Padre  wanted  the  picture  back 
after  this  sudden  revelation  of  its  wonderful  beauty. 
But  it  never  was  transferred  again  to  the  old  lumber 
room. 

"What   became   of  the   Padre?" 

"  I  think  he  went  to  heaven,  where  he  found 
better  pictures  than  were  ever  fished  out  of  that 
old  lumber  room." 

"And   the   sign   painter?" 

"Did  you  ever  know  a  man  who  had  a  Murillo, 
or  even  thought  he  had  one,  who  was  in  a  hurry 
to  leave  this  world  ? " 


OP 


SHADOWS   OF   ST.  HELENA. 


WHETHER  in  the  Russian  River  Valley,  Napa,  or 
the  smaller  valleys  of  the  Clear  Lake  country,  St. 
Helena  is  in  such  friendly  proximity  that  all  sense 
of  isolation  is  destroyed.  Looking  toward  the  south 
from  its  shoulder,  there  was  an  endless  succession 
of  stubblefields  and  vineyards ;  the  faint  clatter  of 
threshing  machines  could  be  heard ;  sacks  of  wheat 
stood  bolt  upright  in  the  fields,  like  millers  in 
convention.  A  train  of  cars,  diminished  by  the  long 
perspective,  was  creeping  with  serpentine  undulations 
up  the  valley,  and  trailing  a  thin  vapor  against  the 
sky.  Farther  south  was  the  bay ;  white  sails  of  little 
schooners,  outlined  by  the  glass,  appeared  to  split  the 
salt  meadows  open,  as  they  crept  toward  the  little 
town  of  Napa.  St.  Helena  was  grandly  lifted  up  on 
that  autumnal  morning,  and  all  the  little  mountains 
seemed  to  be  rendering  homage  to  the  king. 

There  is  no  country  under  the  sun  where  a 
vineyard  is  more  picturesque  than  here.  If  there 


n6  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 

were  an  interminable  perspective  of  green  clothing 
and  coloring  all  the  hillsides,  there  would  be  no 
fitting  border  for  the  picture.  But  when  there  is 
not  a  fresh  blade  of  grass  by  the  wayside,  and  the 
tawny  hills  touch  the  yellow  stubble-fields,  we  have 
a  broad  golden  frame  for  some  picture  which  ought 
to  be  worthy  of  it.  And  what  more  so  than  a 
sixty-acre  vineyard,  set  within  this  mitred  framework 
of  mountains?  The  border  is  a  very  generous  one, 
certainly — five  or  six  miles  of  slope  on  either  side, 
and  this  square  of  emerald  in  the  centre.  It  is 
all  worked  in  with  true  artistic  effect,  except  those 
straight  lines  of  vines,  crossing  at  right  angles.  A 
poet  or  a  painter,  setting  this  vineyard,  would  have 
curved  the  lines,  or  secured  an  orderly  disorder — 
enough,  at  least,  to  have  destroyed  the  association 
with  a  schoolboy's  rule  and  plummet. 

Observe  that  the  vines  are  not  tied  to  clumsy, 
stiff  stakes ;  nor  are  the  leaves  plucked  off  in  part, 
to  prevent  mildew.  The  runners  reach  out  and 
interlace,  resting  gently  on  the  ground.  The  leaves 
droop  a  little  in  the  hot  sun,  making  a  complete 
canopy  for  the  clusters,  the  largest  of  which  rest 
on  the  ground.  How  much  more  fitting  this  growing 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  117 

revelation — this  discovery,  step  by  step,  of  hidden 
clusters — than  to  see  all  this  wealth  at  once,  as  one 
might  do  if  the  vines  were  trained  bolt  upright, 
and  held  in  bondage  by  stakes ! 

Another  notable  effect  is  produced  by  the  twenty 
or  more  varieties,  differing  in  the  shape  of  the 
leaf  and  in  the  color  and  flavor  of  the  grape. 
The  Tokay  blushes  by  the  side  of  the  blackest 
Malvoisie.  The  Muscatel  is  pale  where  the  Victoria 
has  as  much  color  as  a  ruddy  English  girl.  The 
Muscats  have  a  tinge  of  gold,  in  fine  contrast  with 
the'  Rose  of  Peru,  whose  regal  purple  deepens  with 
every  midday  sun. 

Three  months  hence,  this  border  of  gold  will  all 
be  changed  to  the  rank  and  riotous  green  of 
pastures  quickened  by  the  vernal  rains — this  square 
setting,  as  of  emerald,  stripped  of  every  leaf  and 
every  cluster,  but  the  bronzed  vines  still  interlacing 
and  toning  the  landscape  into  a  mellow  ripeness. 
A  month  later,  the  merciless  pruning-knife  has  left 
only  the  black  stub,  a  foot  above  the  ground,  and 
two  or  three  "eyes"  for  the  new  wood.  This 
amputated  vineyard,  with  its  limbs  burning  by  the 
wayside,  suggests  enough  of  prosy  realism  to 


n8  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 

neutralize    all    the    sentiment   which   it   can   inspire 
on   a   hot   September   day. 

Will  the  juice  of  these  grapes  enrich  the  blood, 
and  add  any  essential  quality  to  the  tone  and  fibre 
of  a  race  which  is  giving  so  many  signs  of  physical 
decadence?  This  conglomerate  which  you  call 
society  is  hanging  out  a  great  many  flags  of 
distress.  It  babbles  incoherently  of  perfectibility, 
and  goes  straightway  to  the  bad.  Are  these 
reformers  going  to  save  the  world,  who,  either 
through  intemperance  of  speech  or  drink,  must 
needs  be  moderated  by  a  padlock  put  upon  their 
mouths?  Nor  is  it  safe,  just  now,  to  calculate  the 
results  of  this  feminine  gospel  of  vituperation.  The 
back  of  the  body  politic  may  be  the  better  for 
having  a  political  fly  blister  laid  on ;  and  it  might, 
perhaps,  as  well  be  done  by  feminine  hands  as 
any  other.  But  there  are  some  evils  too  deep  for 
surface  remedies.  If,  for  instance,  vineyards  are 
going  to  curse  the  people,  as  my  moralizing  friend 
insists,  then  humanity  hereabout  is  in  a  bad  way. 
Why,  a  little  generous  wine  ought  to  enrich  the 
blood  and  inspire  nobility  of  thought,  ff  it  does 
more  than  this — if  it  becomes  a  demon  to  drive 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  119 

men  and  hogs  into  the  sea — then  it  is  evident  that 
both  were  on  too  low  a  plane  of  existence  for  any 
safe  exaltation.  But  shall  the  vineyards  be  rooted 
up,  for  all  this?  It  is  better  to  drown  the  swine, 
and  let  the  grapes  still  grow  purple  upon  the  hillsides. 

Some  day  these  mountains  will  be  wreathed  and 
festooned  with  vines.  One  may  see  this  culture 
now  climbing  to  their  tops.  Oh,  my  friend,  with 
thin  and  impoverished  blood !  do  not  pinch  this 
question  up  in  the  vise  of  your  morality.  No  doubt 
there  was  a  vineyard  in  Eden,  and  there  were  ripe 
clusters  close  by  the  fig-leaves.  You  cannot  prove 
to  me  that  sinless  hands  have  not  plucked  the 
grapes,  and  that  millions  will  not  do  it  again. 
What  we  need  is  not  a  greater  company  of  wailing 
prophets,  but  men  who  will  reveal  to  us  the  higher 
and  nobler  use  of  things.  If  one  could  not  live 
comfortably  in  this  Vale  of  Paradise  and  ripen  from 
year  to  year,  opening  his  soul  to  all  enriching 
influences,  without  an  everlasting  protest,  there 
would  be  small  chance  for  his  comfort  in  any 
more  etherealized  place. 

Looking  northward,  or  from  the  back  side  of  St. 
Helena,  is  Lake  County,  the  centre  of  which  can 


120  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 

be  reached  by  the  daylight  of  a  summer  day 
from  San  Francisco.  It  is  a  wild,  isolated  and 
mountainous  region,  containing  a  harmless  popula 
tion,  who  are  much  addicted  to  salt  pork,  and 
needing  all  the  more,  perhaps,  the  medicinal  and 
renovating  qualities  of  the  various  thermal  springs 
which  abound.  A  Pike,  with  the  wilderness  at  his 
back,  and  civilization  advancing  in  front,  is  sometimes 
a  ridiculous,  and  oftener  a  pitiable,  specimen  of 
humanity.  When  the  schoolhouse  overtakes  him, 
there  is  a  crisis  in  his  affairs.  He  must  elect  to 
hustle  half  a  score  of  frowzy-headed  children  into 
his  covered  wagon,  hang  a  few  pots  and  kettles  at 
the  rear,  and  plunge  farther  into  the  wilderness,  or 
let  civilization  go  past  him,  closing  in  upon  all  sides, 
and,  in  spite  of  impotent  protests,  narrowing  perhaps 
his  own  horizon,  but  making  it  broader  and  brighter 
for  his  children.  If  the  horizon  is  too  bright,  this 
blinking  Pike  will  turn  his  back  to  the  light,  and 
make  a  break  for  Egypt.  So  long  as  there  is  bacon 
and  hominy,  and  free  territory,  with  a  modicum 
of  whisky  within  easy  reach,  you  cannot  summon 
this  stolid,  retreating  animal  to  a  better  condition. 
Nature  has  made  a  botch  of  him,  else  he  would 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  121 

now  be  running  on  four  feet,  instead  ol  two.  A 
border  man,  running  away  from  civilization,  who 
cannot  bark  and  burrow  like  a  coyote,  nor  climb 
a  tree  like  a  gorilla,  is  wrestling  with  his  fate  at 
a  terrible  disadvantage. 

If  you  have  never  seen  Clear  Lake,  do  not 
babble  about  Como  and  Geneva.  Here  are  eighty 
square  miles  of  water,  lifted  fifteen  hundred  feet 
above  the  sea,  and  encompassed  by  mountains 
whose  flaming  forges  were  put  out  but  yesterday — 
if  a  thousand  years  may  be  taken  as  one  day. 
One  may  see  Clear  Lake  from  the  top  of  St. 
Helena,  twenty  miles  distant,  on  a  bright  day. 
We  saw  it  first  from  Lukonoma — an  intervening 
mountain,  about  fifteen  hundred  feet  high — a  ribbon 
of  blue  water,  stretching  away  between  the  hills, 
with  a  solitary  white  sail,  recognized  only  by  bringing 
a  tree  in  the  range.  There  was  the  droning  of 
the  pines  in  the  mountain-tops  in  the  afternoon  trade- 
wind  ;  a  broad  valley  opening  to  the  south,  which 
swallowed  up  two  or  three  mountain  streams,  and 
then  opened  its  ugly  adobe  lips  for  more ;  smaller 
valleys  toward  the  north,  encircled  with  tall  firs, 
and  the  slumberous  dome  of  Uncle  Sam,  lifting 


122  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 

itself  up  grandly  three  or  four  thousand  feet  hard 
by  the   lake. 

Along  this  Lukonoma  ridge  there  is  a  well-defined 
Indian  trail  for  miles.  The  Clear  Lake  Indians 
were  accustomed  to  exchange  visits  with  a  tribe  in 
the  Lukonoma  Valley,  ten  miles  below.  The  tops 
of  the  highest  mountain  ridges  were  selected  for 
trails,  rather  than  the  valley.  The  Indian  does  not 
like  to  be  surprised,  even  by  his  friends.  Along 
these  ridges  he  could  look  off  on  either  side,  and 
a  long  way  ahead.  If  not  molested,  he  might  drop 
down  to  the  hot  springs  just  at  the  base  of  the 
mountain,  take  a  mud  bath  to  make  his  joints  a 
little  more  supple,  and  if  he  found  an  ant's  nest 
to  add  to  his  dietary  stores,  so  much  the  better. 
You  need  not  overhaul  the  Indian's  cookbook.  He 
ate  the  ants  alive.  No  shrimp-eater  ought  to  quarrel 
with  him  on  that  score. 

We  shall  have  a  nearer  view  of  Lower  Lake 
another  day.  It  is  better  to  have  the  first  view 
of  some  old  and  famous  city  from  the  hill-tops. 
That  revelation  ripens  into  a  picture  which  ever 
afterward  we  hasten  to  set  over  against  the  squalor 
and  ugliness  disclosed  by  a  nearer  view.  One  need 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  123 

not  be  wholly  disgusted  if,  in  place  of  a  trout, 
he  has  caught  a  mud-turtle  from  the  lake  which 
opened  its  sheen  of  waters  to  him  first  from  the 
mountain  summit. 

The  shadows  had  stretched  nearly  across  the 
narrow  valleys,  when  it  occurred  to  us  that,  in 
climbing  to  the  highest  and  baldest  peak,  the  Indian 
trail  had  run  out,  and  that  the  hot  springs — the 
point  of  departure — were  eight  miles  distant,  and 
were  shut  out  of  view  by  an  intervening  spur. 
Either  a  short  cut  was  to  be  made,  trusting  to  luck 
to  find  a  trail,  or  there  was  to  be  a  night  on  the 
mountain.  There  were  two  intervening  canyons  to 
be  crossed  before  there  was  any  prospect  of  striking 
a  trail.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  slide  a  horse  on  his 
haunches  down  into  one  of  these  chasms  without 
knowing  where  one  is  to  bring  up.  If  the  most 
obscure  cattle  trail  can  be  found  leading  in,  one 
may  trust  to  the  instincts  of  horse  sense  to  find 
it,  and  also  the  one  which  will  most  certainly  lead 
out  on  the  other  side.  The  tinkling  of  a  cow-bell 
on  the  table-lands  beyond  was  a  welcome  sound. 
The  horses  wound  into  the  first  canyon,  and  went 
out  without  much  hesitation.  The  trail  for  the 


124  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 

next,  by  good  luck,  had  been  found.  But  it 
was  a  suspicious  circumstance  that  these  ponies — 
accustomed  to  such  defiles,  and  now  heading  for 
home — hesitated,  snuffed,  snorted  and  turned  about. 
The  rein  was  given  to  them,  but,  hungry  as  they 
were,  they  seemed  disposed  to  turn  back.  The 
little  Cayuse  pony  trembled,  threw  his  ears  forward, 
advanced  and  retreated,  and  blew  out  a  column 
of  vapor  from  each  nostril  as  he  kept  up  his 
aboriginal  snort.  Either  two  tired  and  hungry 
excursionists  must  make  a  night  of  it,  shut  in  by 
a  canyon  in  front  and  in  the  rear,  or  the  second 
one  must  be  crossed  without  delay. 

A  horse  is  generally  willing  to  plant  his  feet 
where  he  sees  a  man  do  it  in  advance.  But  these 
horses  were  dragged  into  the  chasm,  sometimes 
dropping  on  their  haunches,  and  at  other  times 
plowing  along  with  the  fore  feet  braced  well  ahead. 
Once  at  the  bottom,  a  fresh  cinch  was  taken  with 
the  greatest  difficulty,  as  neither  horse  could  be 
kept  still  for  a  second.  A  moment  afterward  the 
click  of  the  pony's  feet  was  heard,  and  the  sparks 
thrown  off  by  his  shoes  were  distinct  enough  as 
he  shot  up  the  trail  as  though  projected  from  a 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  125 

mortar.  The  old  horse — stiff  in  the  shoulders,  and 
his  legs  like  crowbars — was  not  a  rod  behind  him. 

"  Did   you    see   anything   in    that   canyon  ? " 

"  No — yes.  I  saw  the  outline  of  a  steer  going 
down  to  drink." 

"  Nonsense !  Do  you  think  these  tired  horses, 
refusing  first  to  come  into  the  canyon,  would  have 
gone  out  on  the  other  side  as  if  Satan  were  after 
them,  if  they  did  not  know  that  that  particular  steer 
had  claws.  If  you  had  seen  twenty  mules  break 
out  of  a  yard  and  stampede  when  the  foot  of  a 
cinnamon  bear  was  thrown  over,  you  would  not 
blame  these  horses  for  blazing  the  trail  with  fire 
as  they  thundered  up  the  rocks  with  the  fresh 
scent  of  a  live  grizzly  in  their  nostrils. 

"Then,  if  you  are  willing  to  take  the  affidavits 
of  these  two  horses  as  to  the  facts— and  the  jurat 
of  eight  steel-clad  hoofs,  striking  fire  on  the  rocks, 
was  a  very  solemn  one — you  can  settle  the  question 
in  favor  of  the  grizzly  much  more  comfortably  than 
he  would  have  settled  it  for  you.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  one's  scalp  should  be  pulled  over 
his  eyes  and  his  face  set  awry  for  life,  in  order  to 
obtain  a  more  convincing  demonstration.  I  can 


126  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 

refer  you  to  a  settler  who  has  had  these  things 
done  for  him,  whereat  his  satisfaction  has  in  no 
whit  increased." 

An  hour  afterward  two  horses  with  drooping 
heads  went  into  their  stalls,  and  two  jaded  ex 
cursionists  had  each  dropped  into  hot  baths  at 
Harbin's  Springs.  Nothing  externally  will  neutralize 
the  chill  of  a  night  ride  among  the  mountains  better 
than  water  which  spouts  from  this  hillside  heated 
to  no  degrees.  It  is  a  notable  caprice  of  Nature 
that,  of  three  springs  within  the  space  of  twenty 
feet,  one  is  cold  and  has  no  mineral  qualities ; 
the  other  two  are  of  about  the  same  temperature, 
the  waters  of  one  strongly  impregnated  with  iron 
and  the  other  with  sulphur.  The  waters  of  the 
two  mineral  springs  combined  are  not  only  as  hot 
as  a  strong  man  can  bear,  but  they  dissolve  zinc 
bath-tubs,  which  was  a  satisfactory  reason  for  the 
substitution  of  ugly  wooden  bathing-boxes.  It  is 
a  pleasant  nook,  grandly  encircled  with  mountains, 
with  the  wonderfully  blue  heavens  by  day,  and 
lustrous  stars  by  night. 

Fifty  or  sixty  moping  invalids  made  up  the 
assortment  at  the  hotel.  These  taciturn  and  moody 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  127 

people  did  not  wait  for.  the  angel  to  go  down  and 
trouble  the  waters,  but  each  went  in  his  own  way 
and  time,  and  troubled  the  waters  mightily  on  his 
personal  account.  The  fact  may  be  assumed  that 
the  angel  had  been  there  in  advance.  For  a 
thousand  years,  a  great  subterranean  caldron  had 
been  heated,  tempered  and  medicated,  and  its  vapors 
had  ascended  as  incense  toward  heaven. 

This  little  sanitarium  among  the  mountains, 
crowded  with  curious  people — angular,  petulant  and 
capricious — was  invested  with  a  great  peace  and 
restfulness  for  brain-weary  folk.  When  the  sun 
went  down,  invalids,  like  children,  went  off  to 
bed.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  sleep  through 
the  long  cool  nights.  All  the  conventionalities  of 
a  more  artificial  social  life  were  reversed.  The 
people  who  had  fought  Nature  and  common  sense 
for  years,  and  had  been  worsted  in  the  conflict, 
came  here  to  make  their  peace  with  her.  They 
were  up  with  the  opening  of  the  day.  They  drank 
medicated  waters  heroically ;  dropped  into  hot  baths 
with  a  sensation  akin  to  have  fallen  on  the  points 
of  a  million  needles ;  plunged  into  pools,  or  were 
immersed  with  the  vapors  collected  in  close  rooms. 


128  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 

There  were  early  breakfasts,  when  the  boards  were 
swept  by  invalids  with  ravenous  appetites ;  dinners 
at  midday,  attended  by  the  same  hungry,  silent, 
introspective  people ;  supper,  before  sundown,  when 
the  same  famishing  people  were  eating  away  for 
dear  life.  A  four-horse  passenger  wagon  arrived 
just  at  nightfall,  bringing  the  mail  and  an  occasional 
guest.  There  was  a  glance  at  the  newspapers,  now 
and  then  a  letter  was  read,  and  then  night  and  a 
sweet  stillness  settled  over  this  mountain  dell.  Time 
was  of  little  consequence ;  people  searched  an  old 
almanac  for  the  day  of  the  week  or  month ;  the 
sun  rose  above  the  crest  of  one  mountain  and  went 
down  behind  another ;  there  were  the  morning  and 
evening  shadows,  the  same  flood  of  light  in  the 
valley  at  midday,  the  monotonous  drone  of  the 
little  rivulet  in  the  canyon,  and  at  long  intervals 
the  twitter  of  a  solitary  bird.  Some  sauntered 
along  trails,  counting  the  steps  with  a  sort  of 
mental  vacuity ;  others  tilted  their  chairs  under 
porches,  and  slept  with  hats  over  their  eyes.  If 
a  bustling,  loud-voiced  guest  arrived,  in  a  day  or 
two  he  fell  into  the  same  peaceful  and  subdued 
ways.  The  repose  of  sky  and  mountain  came 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  129 

down  gently  upon  him,  and  a  dreamy  indolence 
shortened  his  steps  and  prolonged  his  afternoon 
naps. 

There  would  have  been  an  utter  stagnation  of 
life  but  for  the  advent  of  one  of  those  characters 
who  had  been  everywhere,  seen  everybody,  and 
had  become  a  sort  of  itinerating  museum  of  odd 
conceits  and  grotesque  incidents.  There  were  many 
invalids  who  had  separated  themselves  from  business 
cares,  only  to  brood  over  their  infirmities.  They 
wanted  nothing  so  much  as,  in  some  way,  to  be 
led  apart  from  their  own  morbid  natures.  The 
eccentric  little  man  told  his  stories.  They  were 
not  always  fresh,  nor  always  extremely  witty. 
But,  as  the  assortment  never  ran  out,  and  the 
quality  improved  from  day  to  day,  the  fact 
was  alike  creditable  to  his  inventive  powers  and 
his  benevolence.  At  first,  the  worst  specimens 
of  morbid  anatomy  listened  from  a  distance,  and 
muttered,  "Foolish;"  "Don't  believe  a  word  of  it." 
The  next  day  they  hitched  their  chairs  along  a  few 
feet  nearer  to  this  story-telling  evangel.  One  could 
occasionally  see  that  a  crisis  was  coming ;  either 
these  people  must  laugh,  or  be  put  on  the  list  of 


130  SHADOWS  OF  'ST.  HELENA. 

hopeless  incurables.  Observing,  on  one  occasion, 
a  man  on  crutches  who,  after  listening  for  a  time 
with  apparent  contempt,  suddenly  withdrew  and 
hobbled  off  around  a  turn  of  the  narrow  road, 
I  ventured  to  ask  him  if  stories  were  disagreeable 
to  him. 

"Oh,  no,  that  is  not  it.  You  see  I  had  not 
laughed  in  years.  I  was  determined  that  old 
Hooker  should  not  make  me  laugh,  if  I  did  not 
choose  to.  The  fact  is,  I  had  either  to  holler  or 
die.  I  wouldn't  make  a  fool  of  myself,  and  so  I 
went  around  the  bend  in  the  road,  and  turned  off 
into  the  chaparral." 

As  this  man  dropped  one  crutch  in  a  week 
from  that  time,  and  in  ten  days  thereafter  was 
walking  with  a  cane,  I  have  never  doubted  that 
he  "hollered." 

At  nightfall  generous  wood  fires  glowed  upon 
the  hearth  of  the  sitting  room,  and  there  was  a 
more  hopeful  light  in  many  faces.  People  lingered 
in  the  doorway,  on  the  stairs,  and  leaned  over  the 
balustrade  for  one  more  story  from  the  genial  and 
eccentric  man.  A  ripple  of  half-suppressed  laughter 
went  around  the  room,  ran  up  the  stair- way,  and 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  131 

ended  in  gentle  gurgles  in  the  rooms  with  open  doors 
at  the  end  of  the  corridor.  The  man  of  anecdote 
and  story  had  touched,  with  healing  influences, 
maladies  which  no  medicated  waters  could  reach. 
He  exorcised  the  demons  so  gently,  that  these 
brooding  invalids  hardly  knew  how  they  were  rescued. 
New  and  marvelous  virtues  were  thereafter  found  in 
the  spring  water  ;  there  was  a  softer  sunlight  in  the 
dell ;  the  man  with  the  liver  complaint  became  less 
sallow,  and  no  longer  talked  spitefully  about  "Old 
Hooker  " ;  and  the  woman  who  did  not  expect  to  live 
a  week,  no  longer  sent  down  petulant  requests  that 
the  house  might  be  still,  but  only  wanted  that  last 
story  repeated  to  her  "just  as  he  told  it." 

Once,  as  the  twilight  drew  on,  the  face  of  Hooker 
seemed  to  glow  with  unwonted  radiance,  as  he 
unfolded  his  plans  for  a  sanitary  retreat  His  theory 
was,  that  civilization  had  culminated  in  mental 
disorders,  and  the  world  was  running  mad  with 
excitements,  which  half-demented  people  were  busy 
in  fomenting.  Of  the  sixty  guests  at  the  Springs,  he 
estimated  that,  at  one  time,  not  more  than  seven  per 
cent,  were  free  from  some  sort  of  a  delusion — the 
evidence  of  lunacy  in  its  milder  forms.  If  put  into 


I32  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 

strait-jackets,  or  shut  up  in  the  wards  of  an  hospital, 
or  treated  otherwise  as  if  insane,  they  would  become 
as  mad  as  Bedlam.  One  delusion  must  be  matched 
against  another.  Every  man  and  woman  must  be 
treated  as  sane,  and  all  that  they  did,  or  thought,  or 
said,  as  the  perfection  of  reason.  The  nonsense  of 
clowns  had  cured  more  people  than  the  wisdom  of 
philosophers.  The  chemistry  of  Nature,  the  sunshine, 
the  pure  mountain  air,  and  all  the  subtle  combinations 
of  thaumaturgic  springs  must  be  supplemented  by 
every  art  which  could  beguile  and  lead  people  away 
from  a  miserable  self-consciousness.  A  half-hour  of 
sound  sleep  is  sometimes  the  bridge  over  the  gulf 
from  death  to  life.  He  would  not  only  make  people 
sleep,  but  even  laugh  in  their  sleep.  He  would 
practice  the  highest  arts  of  a  sanitary  magician.  His 
patients  should  laugh  by  night  and  by  day.  They 
should  forget  themselves.  The  time  would  come 
when  the  best  story-teller  would  be  accounted  the 
best  physician. 

On  the  evening  before  leaving  the  Springs,  two 
hunters,  in  clay-colored  clothes,  deposited  upon  the 
porch  each  a  deer  and  a  string  of  mountain  trout. 
Hooker,  of  blessed  memory,  after  whispering  confi 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  133 

dentially  the  bill  of  fare  for  an  early  breakfast,  went 
aside  and  talked  in  an  undertone  with  the  hunters, 
who  soon  afterward  disappeared  in  the  direction  of 
the  canyon  we  had  crossed  a  few  evenings  before. 
The  moon  being  nearly  at  full,  there  would  be  a 
good  prospect  for  deer  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
night ;  but  there  was  a  possible  hint  of  larger  game, 
in  the  chuckling  undertone  of  one  of  the  hunters  as 
he  shouldered  his  rifle :  "  Fellers  as  wear  them  kind 
o'  clothes  don't  know  a  bar  when  they  see  him." 

In  the  early  morning,  the  same  hunters  were 
warming  their  fingers  by  the  wood  fire  in  the  sitting- 
room.  Hooker  was  already  up,  and  flitted  about — 
now  conferring  with  the  hunters,  and  then  with  the 
steward.  A  game  breakfast  was  already  assured. 
Hooker  whispered  that  the  hunters  had  found  the 
bear  which  sent  the  ponies  flying  out  of  the  canyon. 
He  had  been  taken  alive,  and  we  should  have  a 
parting  look  at  him  in  advance  of  the  other  guests  as 
we  drove  down  the  road.  A  Pike,  astride  of  the 
corral  fence,  saluted  Hooker  as  we  were  climbing  to 
the  top  rail :  "  Glad  you  'uns  found  old  corn-cracker 
up  the  gulch.  He  was  powerful  weak  when  I  turned 
him  out.  He's  a  good  'un." 


134  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 

One  glance  at  his  long,  yellow  tusks  and  bristling 
back  was  enough.  There  was  a  sudden  snap  of 
the  whip,  and  the  dust  spun  from  the  wheels  as 
two  horses  shot  down  the  road  on  a  bright  October 
morning.  The  little  dell,  with  its  thermal  springs, 
its  colony  of  invalids,  Hooker,  the  incorrigible,  and 
the  "bear"  in  the  corral,  disappeared  with  a  gentle 
benediction. 

One  may  traverse  a  thousand  miles  of  the  Coast 
Range,  and  not  find  another  mountain  road  which 
reveals,  at  every  turn,  so  many  striking  views  as 
the  one  of  twenty  miles  from  Harbin's  to  Calistoga. 
The  road,  for  a  considerable  distance,  follows  the 
windings  of  a  noisy  and  riotous  little  rivulet,  which, 
heading  on  the  easterly  side  of  St.  Helena,  runs 
obstinately  due  north  for  several  miles.  The  fringe 
of  oaks  and  madronos  were  wonderfully  fresh,  as 
they  stood  half  in  sunlight  and  half  in  shadow, 
still  dripping,  here  and  there,  with  the  moisture 
which  had  been  condensed  during  the  night.  A 
delegation  of  robins  had  come  down  from  higher 
latitudes,  and  were  taking  an  early  and  cheery 
breakfast  from  the  scarlet  berries  of  the  madrono. 
It  needed  but  the  flaming  maple  and  falling  chestnuts, 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  135 

with  some  prospect  of  "shell-barks,"  to  round  into 
perfect  fullness  these  autumnal  glories.  But  no  one 
living  east  of  the  Hudson  could  raise  such  a  wild 
and  unearthly  yell  as  broke  from  the  Judge  every 
time  a  cotton-tail  rabbit  darted  across  the  road.  The 
obstreperous  woodpecker  was  awed  into  silence,  and 
the  more  industrious  ones  dropped  in  amazement  the 
acorns  which  they  were  tapping  into  the  trunks  of 
the  trees,  and  flitted  silently  away. 

"  That,"  said  the  Judge,  "  is  not  half  as  loud  as  I 
heard  Hooker  yell  six  months  ago." 

"  Then  he  was  demented  ?  " 

"Yes;  he  was  as  mad  as  a  March  hare,  and  in  a 
strait-jacket  at  that." 

"That  clears  up  one  or  two  mysteries.  But  you 
might  have  made  the  revelation  before." 

"When  are  you  going  to  start  that  hilarious 
institution  which  you  and  Hooker  called  a  sani 
tarium  ?  " 

Just  then,  the  summit  of  the  mountain  road  had 
been  gained,  and  the  long  perspective  of  the  Napa 
Valley  opened  at  the  base  of  St.  Helena,  and 
melted  away  toward  the  south  into  the  soft,  dreamy 
atmosphere  of  an  autumnal  noonday. 


THE  HOUSE  OP  THE  HILL, 


THE    HOUSE  ON  THE    HILL. 


A  COUNTRY  without  grandmothers  and  old  houses 
needs  a  great  many  balancing  compensations.  Every 
where  one  is  confronted  with  staring  new  houses, 
which  require  an  external  ripening  in  the  wind  and 
sun  for  half  a  century.  If  the  motherly  wisdom  of 
seventy-five  years  is  lodged  therein,  it  is  something 
of  recent  importation.  I  have  walked  two  miles  to 
see  an  old  lady,  who  not  only  bears  this  transplanting 
well,  but  is  as  fresh  and  winsome  in  thought  as  a  girl 
of  sixteen.  If  only  there  had  been  an  old  house,  a 
stone  fire-place — wide  at  the  jambs — and  a  low, 
receding  roof  in  the  rear,  with  a  bulging  second 
story  and  oaken  beams,  nothing  more  would  have 
been  wanting. 

When,  therefore,  it  was  whispered,  one  day,  that 
there  was  an  old  house  in  the  middle  of  a  large  lot 
on  a  hill,  overlooking  the  Golden  Gate,  there  was  a 
strong  and  unaccountable  desire  to  take  possession  of 
it  immediately.  But  when  the  fact  was  stated  that 
the  house  was  ten  years  old,  that  there  was  moss  upon 


140  THE  HOUSE  ON   THE  HILL. 

the  shingles,  low  ceilings  within,  and  a  low  roof 
without,  the  destiny  of  that  house  was  well  nigh 
settled.  The  owner  wanted  money  much  more  than 
old  houses.  In  fact,  a  Californian  who  refuses  to  sell 
anything,  except  his  wife,  is  only  found  after  long 
intervals.  The  transfer  of  ownership  was  natural 
enough.  It  followed  that  one  evening  there  was  a 
dreamy  consciousness  that  we  were  the  owner  of  a 
small,  rusty-looking  cottage,  set  down  in  the  middle 
of  an  acre  lot,  defined  by  dilapidated  fences,  and 
further  ornamented  by  such  stumps  of  trees  as  had 
been  left  after  all  the  stray  cattle  of  the  neighborhood 
had  browsed  them  at  will.  As  incidents  of  the 
transfer,  there  was  the  Golden  Gate,  with  the  sun 
dropping  into  the  ocean  beyond ;  the  purple  hills ; 
the  sweep  of  the  bay  for  fifteen  miles,  on  which  a 
white  sail  could  be  seen,  here  and  there ;  and,  later, 
the  long  rows  of  flickering  street  lamps,  revealing  the 
cleft  avenues  of  the  great  city  dipping  toward  the 
water  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  bay. 

Consider  what  an  investment  accompanies  these 
muniments  of  title.  It  is  not  an  acre  lot  and  an  old 
house  merely,  with  several  last  year's  birds'  nests  and 
a  vagrant  cat,  but  the  ownership  extends  ninety-five 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL,  14* 

millions  of  miles  toward  the  zenith,  and  indefinitely 
toward  the  nadir.  No  one  can,  in  miners'  parlance, 
get  an  extension  above  or  below.  It  is  a  square  acre, 
bounded  by  heaven  and  hades. 

If  my  neighbor  builds  an  ugly  house,  why  should  I 
find  fault  with  it,  since  it  is  the  expression  of  his 
wants,  and  not  of  mine.  If  these  are  honestly 
expressed,  he  has  compassed  the  main  end  of  house 
building.  He  may  have  produced  something  that 
nobody  in  the  wide  world  will  be  suited  with,  or  will 
ever  want  but  himself.  But  if  it  is  adapted  to  his 
wants,  it  is  only  in  some  remote  and  aesthetic  way 
that  his  neighbors  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
matter.  They  may  wish  that  he  had  not  made  it 
externally  as  ugly  as  original  sin ;  that  he  had  laid  a 
heavy  hand  on  the  antics  of  architect  and  carpenter  ; 
that  lightning  would  some  day  strike  the  "pilot 
house,"  or  some  other  excrescence  which  has  been 
glued  on  to  the  top ;  and  that  a  certain  smart 
obtrusiveness  were  toned  down  a  little  to  harmonize 
with  a  more  correct  taste.  But  one  could  not 
formulate  these  defects  and  send  them  to  his  neighbor 
without  running  a  risk  quite  unwarranted  by  any  good 
that  might  be  effected. 


142  THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL. 

Taking  possession  of  an  old  house,  its  ugliness  is 
to  be  redeemed,  not  rashly,  but  considerately,  and  in 
the  spirit  of  gentleness.  Its  homeliness  has  been 
consecrated;  its  doors  may  have  been  the  portals 
both  of  life  and  death.  Possibly,  some  one  has  gone 
out  whose  memory  of  it  in  the  ends  of  the  earth 
will  transform  it  into  something  of  comeliness  and 
beauty. 

Investing  an  old  house,  the  first  process  is  to 
become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  it,  and  then,  if  it 
is  to  be  enlarged,  push  it  out  from  the  center  with 
such  angles  as  will  catch  the  sun,  and  will  bring  the 
best  view  within  range  from  the  windows.  It  will 
grow  by  expansions  and  accretions.  You  want  a 
bed-room  on  the  eastern  side,  because  of  the  morning 
sun.  By  all  means,  put  it  there.  The  morning 
benediction  which  comes  in  at  the  window  may 
temper  one  to  better  ways  all  the  day. 

No  man  will  build  a  house  to  suit  his  inmost 
necessities,  unless  he  proceeds  independently  of  all 
modern  rules  of  construction.  Some  of  these  are 
good  enough,  but  they  nearly  all  culminate  in  an 
ambitious  externalism.  The  better  class  of  dwellings 
erected  seventy-five  years  ago  contained  broad  stair- 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  143 

cases,  spacious  sleeping-rooms,  and  a  living-room, 
where  the  whole  family  and  the  guests,  withal,  might 
gather  at  the  fire-side.  The  house  was  an  expression 
of  hospitality.  The  host  had  room  for  friendships  in 
his  heart,  and  room  at  his  hearthstone.  The  modern 
house,  with  its  stiff  angularities,  narrow  halls,  and 
smart  reception-rooms,  expresses  no  idea  of  hospitality. 
It  warns  the  stranger  to  deliver  his  message  quickly, 
and  be  off.  It  is  well  adapted  to  small  conventional 
hypocrisies,  but  you  will  never  count  the  stars  there 
by  looking  up  the  chimney. 

One  may  search  long  to  find  the  man  who  has  not 
missed  his  aim  in  the  matter  of  house-building.  It  is 
generally  needful  that  two  houses  should  be  built  as  a 
sacrifice  to  sentiment,  and  then  the  third  experiment 
may  be  reasonably  successful.  The  owner  will 
probably  wander  through  the  first  two,  seeking  rest 
and  finding  none.  His  ideal  dwelling  is  more  remote 
than  ever.  There  may  be  a  wealth  of  gilt  and 
stucco,  and  an  excess  of  marble,  which  ought  to  be 
piled  up  in  the  cemetery  for  future  use.  But  the 
house  which  receives  one  as  into  the  very  heaven — 
which  is,  from  the  beginning,  invested  with  the 
ministries  of  rest,  of  hospitality,  of  peace,  of  that 


144  THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL. 

indefinable  comfort  which  seems  to  converge  all  the 
goodness  of  the  life  that  now  is  with  the  converging 
sunbeams — such  a  dwelling  does  not  grow  out  of  the 
first  crude  experiment.  It  will  never  be  secured  until 
one  knows  better  what  he  really  wants  than  an 
architect  or  carpenter  can  tell  him. 

"Did  you  bring  the  old  house  up  to  this  ideal 
standard?"  Just  about  as  near  as  that  pear  tree, 
at  the  lower  end  of  the  garden,  has  been  brought 
up  to  a  perfect  standard  of  fruiting.  You  perceive 
that  where  half  of  the  top  was  cut  away,  and  new 
scions  inserted,  the  pears  hung  in  groups  and  blushed 
in  the  autumnal  sun.  As  you  let  one  of  them  melt 
on  your  palate,  turn  to  the  other  side  of  the  tree, 
and  note  that,  if  ever  a  premium  were  offered  for 
puckering,  acrid  fruit,  these  pears  from  the  original 
stock  ought  to  take  it. 

Now,  if  you  graft  your  ideas  on  to  another's, 
premising  that  his  views  were  crude  and  primitive, 
the  result  will  be  somewhat  mixed.  We  should  say 
that  the  grafts  put  into  that  old  house  were  tolerably 
satisfactory.  But  we  counsel  no  friend  to  build  over 
an  old  house,  unless  he  owns  a  productive  gold 
mine,  and  the  bill  of  particulars  at  the  end  of  his 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL,  145 

exploit   is    more   interesting    and    gratifying   to   him 
than    any    modern    novel. 

There  was,  however,  a  shade  of  regret  when  it 
was  announced  that  nothing  more  remained  to  be 
done.  For  three  months  there  had  been  a  series  of 
gentle  transitions,  and  an  undercurrent  of  pleasurable 
excitement  as  a  door  appeared  in  a  new  place,  a 
window  opened  here  and  there,  stairways  were  cut, 
and  old  pieces  pushed  off  and  new  took  their 
places.  It  seemed  as  if  these  transitions  ought  to 
be  always  going  on,  and  therefore  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world  that  the  carpenters  should  always 
be  cutting  or  hammering  that  house.  They  might 
grow  old  and  another  set  take  their  places,  but 
there  would  always  be  some  room  to  enlarge,  or 
some  want  growing  out  of  the  exigencies  of  a 
new  day.  Moreover,  the  first  part  taken  in  hand 
would  in  time  decay  or  become  antiquated,  and 
why  not  associate  builders  and  house  together,  since 
all  the  jars,  wrenching  of  timbers,  sawing  and 
hammering  had  become  musical,  and  seemed  to  be 
incorporated  as  the  law  of  the  house?  Nothing 
but  financial  considerations  prevented  a  contract 
for  life  with  the  builders,  and  the  life-long  luxury 


146  THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL. 

of  changing  an  old  house  into  a  new  one.  There 
came  a  day  at  last  of  oppressive  silence.  Painters 
came  down  from  their  ladders ;  the  carpenters 
packed  up  their  tools  and  walked  thoughtfully 
around,  taking  an  honest  view  on  all  sides  of  a 
structure  which  had  grown  under  their  hands  until, 
outwardly,  there  was  not  the  slightest  semblance  of 
the  old  house  which  they  took  in  hand  some 
months  before.  There  was  a  shade  akin  to  sadness 
on  the  face  of  the  master  workman,  Evidently  the 
idea  of  ever  leaving  that  house  had  overtaken  him 
for  the  first  time  that  day.  He  had  grown  with 
the  house;  or,  at  any  rate,  his  children  had  been 
growing.  Why  should  he  not  come  back  on  the 
morrow,  and  plumb,  hammer  and  saw;  creeping 
up  the  ladder  with  every  new  day,  and  sliding  down 
with  every  descending  sun  ? 

The  loftiest  house,  and  the  most  perfect,  in  the 
matter  of  architecture,  I  have  ever  seen,  was  that 
which  a  wood-chopper  occupied  with  his  family  one 
winter  in  the  forests  of  Santa  Cruz  County.  It  was 
the  cavity  of  a  redwood  tree  two  hundred  and  forty 
feet  in  height.  Fire  had  eaten  away  the  trunk  at 
the  base,  until  a  circular  room  had  been  formed, 


THE  HOUSE  ON   THE  HILL.  14? 

sixteen  feet  in  diameter.  At  twenty  feet  or  more 
from  the  ground  was  a  knot-hole,  which  afforded 
egress  for  the  smoke.  With  hammocks  hung  from 
pegs,  and  a  few  cooking  utensils  hung  upon  other 
pegs,  that  house  lacked  no  essential  thing.  This 
woodman  was  in  possession  of  a  house  which  had 
been  a  thousand  years  in  process  of  building. 
Perhaps  on  the  very  day  it  was  finished  he  came 
along  and  entered  it.  How  did  all  jack-knife  and 
hand-saw  architecture  sink  into  insignificance  in 
contrast  with  this  house  in  the  solitudes  of  trie 
great  forest !  Moreover,  the  tenant  fared  like  a 
prince ;  within  thirty  yards  of  his  coniferous  house 
a  mountain  stream  went  rushing  past  to  the  sea. 
In  the  swirls  and  eddies  under  the  shelving  rocks, 
if  one  could  not  land  half  a  dozen  trout  within 
an  hour,  he  deserved  to  go  hungry  as  a  penalty 
for  his  awkwardness.  Now  and  then  a  deer  came 
out  into  the  openings,  and,  at  no  great  distance, 
quail,  rabbits  and  pigeons  could  be  found.  What 
did  this*  man  want  more  than  Nature  furnished  him  ? 
He  had  a  house  with  a  "cupola"  two  hundred  and 
forty  feet  high,  and  game  at  the  cost  of  taking  it. 
It  was  a  good  omen,  that  the  chimneys  of  the 


148  THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL. 

house  on  the  hill  had  not  been  topped  out  more  than 
a  week,  before  two  white  doves  alighted  on  them, 
glancing  curiously  down  into  the  flues,  and  then 
toward  the  heavens.  Nothing  but  the  peace  which 
they  brought  could  have  insured  the  serenity  of  that 
house  against  an  untoward  event  which  occurred  a 
week  afterward.  Late  one  evening  the  expressman 
delivered  a  sack  at  the  rear  door,  with  a  note  from  a 
friend  in  the  city,  stating  that  the  writer,  well  knowing 
our  liking  for  thoroughbred  stock,  had  sent  over  one 
of  the  choicest  game-chickens  in  San  Francisco.  The 
qualities  of  that  bird  were  not  overstated.  Such  a 
clean  and  delicately-shaped  head  !  The  long  feathers 
on  his  neck  shaded  from  black  to  green  and  gold. 
His  spurs  were  as  slender  and  sharp  as  lances ;  and 
his  carnage  was  that  of  a  prince,  treading  daintily  the 
earth,  as  if  it  were  not  quite  good  enough  for  him. 
There  was  a  world  of  poetry  about  that  chicken,  and 
he  could  also  be  made  to  serve  some  important  uses. 
It  is  essential  that  every  one  dwelling  on  a  hill,  in  the 
suburbs,  should  be  notified  .of  the  dawn  of  »a  new 
day.  Three  Government  fortifications  in  the  bay  let 
off  as  many  heavy  guns  at  daybreak ;  and,  as  the 
sound  comes  rolling  in  from  seaward,  the  window 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  149 

casements  rattle  responsively.  But  these  guns  do  not 
explode  concurrently ;  frequently  more  than  ten 
minutes  intervene  from  the  first  report  to  the  last  one. 
There  is  ever  a  lingering  uncertainty  as  to  which  is 
making  a  truthful  report,  or  whether  they  are  not  all 
shooting  wide  of  the  mark.  Then,  there  is  a  military 
school  close  by,  which  stirs  up  the  youngsters  with  a 
reveille,  a  gong  and  a  bell,  at  short  intervals.  With 
so  many  announcements,  and  none  of  them  con 
current,  there  would  still  remain  a  painful  uncertainty 
as  to  whether  the  day  had  dawned ;  but  when  that 
game  bird  lifted  up  his  voice,  and  sounded  his  clarion 
notes  high  over  the  hill,  the  guns  of  Alcatraz  and  the 
roll  of  the  drums  over  the  way,  there  could  be  no 
doubt  that  the  day  was  at  the  dawn. 

For  a  week  did  this  mettlesome  bird  lift  up  his 
voice  above  all  the  meaner  roosters  on  the  hill ;  but 
one  morning  there  was  an  ominous  silence  about  the 
precincts  where  he  was  quartered.  The  Alcatraz  gun 
had  been  let  off;  but  the  more  certain  assurance  of 
the  new  day  had  failed.  Something  had  surely 
happened,  for  a  neighbor  was  seen  hurrying  up  the 
walk  in  the  gray  of  the  morning,  red,  puffy,  and  short 
of  wind,  at  that  unseasonable  hour. 


150  THE  HOUSE  ON   THE  HILL. 

"  Come  with  me,  and  take  a  look  in  my 
yard  ....  There,  is  that  your  blasted  game 
chicken?" 

"Why,  yes — no — he  was  sent  over  as  a  present 
from  a  friend." 

Just  then  the  whole  mischief  was  apparent ;  a  great 
Cochin  rooster  was  sneaking  off  toward  the  hedge, 
bloody  and  blind ;  two  Houdans  lay  on  their  backs, 
jerking  their  feet  convulsively — in  short,  that  hen-yard 
had  been  swept  as  with  the  besom  of  destruction. 

"  Do  you  call  that  a  poetical  or  sentimental  bird, 
such  as  a  Christian  man  ought  to  worship  ?  " 

"  No,  not  exactly." 

Just  then  that  game  chicken  arched  his  beautiful 
neck  and  sent  his  clear  notes  high  over  the  hill  and 
into  the  very  heavens.  We  hinted,  in  a  mollifying 
way,  that  he  had  escaped  over  a  fence  ten  feet  high, 
but  that  blood  would  tell. 

"Yes,  I  think  it  has  told  this  morning.  Never 
mind  the  damages ;  but  I  think  you  had  better  cut 
his  wings,"  said  our  neighbor,  already  placated. 

That  bird  was  given  away  before  the  next  sunset. 
But  O !  friend ;  by  the  guns  of  Alcatraz,  and  the 
white  doves  that  alighted  on  the  chimney-tops, 


THE  HOUSE  ON   THE  HILL.  151 

emblems  of  war  and  peace,  send  us  no  more  game 
chickens,  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  hill,  or  to 
finish  the  work  of  destruction  begun  on  that  unlucky 
morning. 

From  the  hill  one  may  look  out  of  the  Golden 
Gate,  as  through  the  tube  of  a  telescope,  and  see  all 
the  watery  waste  and  eternal  scene-shifting  beyond. 
When  the  dull,  undulating  hummocks  look  like  a 
drove  of  camels  in  the  desert,  you  may  be  sure  that 
the  newly-married  couple  just  embarking  on  the 
outward-bound  steamer,  on  a  bridal  tour  to  Los 
Angeles  or  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  will  cease  their 
caroling  and  chirping  within  an  hour.  Half  an  hour 
after  sunset,  if  the  atmosphere  is  clear,  one  may  see 
the  wide-off  light  of  the  Farallones ;  the  nearer  lights 
of  Point  Bonita  and  Alcatraz,  almost  in  line,  dwarfed 
to  mere  fire-flies  now ;  but  when  the  Gate  has  lost  the 
glow  of  its  burnished  gold,  these  great  sea-lamps, 
hung  over  this  royal  avenue,  tell  an  honest  home 
story  for  the  battered  ships  low  down  on  the 
horizon. 

The  little  tugs  which  round  under  the  quarters 
of  the  great  wheat  ships  and  rush  them  out  to  sea, 
know  how  to  overcome  the  inertia  of  the  great 


152  THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL. 

hulks.  They  tug  spitefully,  but  the  ship  has  to 
move,  and  you  see  the  white  sails  already  beginning 
to  fall  down  from  the  yards,  for  the  work  where 
the  blue  water  begins.  It  may  be  a  grotesque 
association,  but  have  you  never  seen  a  small  woman, 
with  a  wonderful  concentration  of  energy,  tug  her 
great  lazy  hulk  of  a  husband  out  into  the  broad 
field  of  earnest  endeavor  in  much  the  same  way? 
Once  there,  his  inertia  overcome,  the  feminine 
tow-line  cast  off,  he  did  brave  and  honest  work, 
making  the  race  quite  abreast  of  average  men. 
But  the  woman,  who  tugged  him  from  his  lazy 
anchorage  out  into  a  good  offing,  did  as  much  for 
that  man  as  he  ever  did  for  himself.  Nothing 
more  fortunate  can  happen  to  a  great  many  men 
than  that  they  be  towed  out  to  sea  early.  And 
in  not  a  few  instances,  nothing  more  unfortunate 
could  happen  than  that  they  should  ever  return. 
This  last  remark  would  have  been  softened  a  little, 
had  it  not  been  repeated  with  emphasis  by  a  tender 
hearted  woman. 

Just  after  a  winter  rain,  there  are  occasionally 
realistic  views  of  the  great  city  in  the  foreground, 
which  are  so  ugly  that  one  never  forgets  them. 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  153 

The  hills  are  brought  nigh ;  all  the  houses  seem 
to  rise  out  of  the  desert,  and  along  the  water  front 
the  spars  of  shipping  look  like  a  forest  which 
has  been  blasted  by  some  devouring  flame.  It  is 
certain  that  these  forests  will  never  sprout  again ; 
and  there  is  such  a  dead  look  that,  were  it  not 
for  the  little  tugs  going  back  and  forth,  one  might 
imagine  that  all  men  had  hastened  away,  and  left 
the  city  to  silence  and  the  desert.  But  after  nightfall 
the  thousand  lamps  glorify  the  city;  the  blackened 
forest  along  the  water  front  has  faded  out;  and 
a  mild  sort  of  charity  steals  over  one,  suggesting 
that,  after  all,  it  is  a  goodly  city  set  upon  a  hill, 
and  that  its  peculiar  beauty  is  not  alone  in  appearing 
to  the  best  advantage  by  gaslight.  The  background 
of  hills  is  more  angular  and  jerky  than  ever  before, 
because  all  the  softening  effect  has  been  taken  out  of 
the  atmosphere.  There  is  no  distance,  no  dreamy 
haze  to  spread  like  a  gossamer  veil  over  these  hard 
outlines.  Nature  is  wonderfully  honest  and  self- 
revealing.  Evidently  these  hills  were  never  finished. 
They  lack  all  the  rounded  beauty,  all  the  gentle 
curves  and  slopes,  and  all  the  fine  touches  of  a 
perfected  work.  They  look  as  if,  when  in  a  plastic 


154  THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL. 

state,  they  had  been  set  by  the  jerk  of  an  earthquake. 
Who  knows  but  another  jerk  might  take  these  kinks 
out  and  tone  down  all  these  stiff  angles,  and  otherwise 
put  on  the  finishing  touches  ?  If  it  must  be  done  in 
this  way,  let  the  softening  undulations  be  as  gentle 
as  possible.  It  is  very  inconvenient  to  get  up  in 
the  morning  and  find  that  the  chimney-top  is  either 
on  the  garden  walk,  or  that  it  has  been  turned 
three-quarters  round,  in  the  very  wantonness  and 
devilment  of  Nature. 

Some  day  there  will  be  a  closer  recognized  relation 
between  landscape  gardening  and  landscape  painting. 
If  the  work  is  done  badly  in  either  department,  it 
will  make  little  difference  whether  an  acre  of  canvas 
is  hung  upon  the  wall,  or  whether  lines  have  been 
badly  drawn  and  colors  crudely  laid  on  to  an  acre  of 
earth.  The  style  of  trimming  trees  so  that  they  are 
a  libel  on  Nature,  and  the  geometrical  diagrams 
worked  up  in  a  garden,  can  hardly  be  referred  to  any 
very  high  standard  of  art.  But  if  my  neighbor  is 
delighted  with  trees  representing  spindles,  ramrods, 
paint  brushes,  cylinders,  cones,  and  what  not,  I 
would  no  more  quarrel  with  him  than  with  the  man 
who  is  under  the  pleasing  delusion  that  he  is  an 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  155 

artist,  because,  in  a  more  remote  way,  he  has  been 
traducing  Nature  with  certain  grotesque  figures  laid 
on  to  canvas. 

A  hedge  will  bear  cutting  into  line,  because  it  is  to 
be  treated  as  nothing  more  than  the  frame  of  the 
landscape  to  be  worked  up.  The  former  may  be  as 
stiff  and  artificial  in  its  way,  as  a  gilt  or  mahogany 
frame,  and  do  no  violence  to  good  taste ;  if  it  hides 
an  ugly  fence,  a  point  has  been  gained.  One  cannot 
expect  much  diversity  of  surface  on  a  single  acre. 
A  large  lawn  will  give  the  effect  of  greater  flatness. 
If  you  find  the  hired  gardener,  bred  in  some  noted 
school  in  Europe,  setting  out  trees  in  straight  lines, 
exhort  him  to  penitence  at  once.  If  he  remain 
obdurate,  cut  the  trees  down  with  your  little  hatchet 
and  pitch  them  over  the  fence,  but  keep  your  temper 
as  sweet  as  a  June  morning.  He  will  see  by  that 
time  that  you  have  ideas  to  be  respected.  Grouping 
the  trees,  on  the  lawn  and  elsewhere,  neutralizes,  in 
part,  the  effect  of  a  flat  surface  ;  it  is  better  than  the 
poor  apology  of  a  little  hillock,  which  suggests  an 
ant's  nest,  or  that  a  coyote  may  be  burrowing  in  that 
vicinity.  Something  may  be  done  in  the  way  of 
massing  colors  with  annuals  to  produce  good  effects. 


156  THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL. 

But  ribbon  gardening,  according  to  the  patterns  laid 
down  by  florists,  has  no  nearer  relation  to  art  in 
landscape  gardening  than  crochet  work  has  to 
landscape  painting.  It  is  a  fantastic  trick,  which 
may  very  well  please  rural  clowns,  but  is  in  some 
sort  an  offense  to  good  taste. 

%  Neither  is  it  necessary  that  all  the  trees  and  shrubs 
which  a  florist  has  for  sale  should  be  admitted  to  the 
private  garden.  More  than  one-half  of  them  have 
no  merit ;  they  neither  set  off  the  grounds,  nor  have 
any  peculiarity  worth  a  moment's  attention.  They 
figure  in  the  florist's  list  under  very  attractive  names, 
but  if  taken  home  they  will  probably  prove  but 
scrubby  little  bushes,  fit  only  to  be  dedicated  to  the 
rubbish-heap  and  the  annual  bon-fire  in  the  Spring. 
A  plant  or  a  shrub  which  gives  no  pleasure  either  in 
its  form  or  the  color  of  its  flower,  and  has  no 
suggestive  associations,  may  do  well  enough  for  a 
botanical  garden.  Many  of  us  may  like  occasionally 
to  look  at  a  hippopotamus  or  an  elephant  in  the 
menagerie,  or  at  the  zoological  gardens,  but  we  don't 
want  these  specimens  brought  home  to  our  private 
grounds.  Some  of  the  sequoia  gigantea  family  do 
very  well  in  the  forest.  Once  in  a  lifetime  we  can 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  157 

afford  to  make  a  journey  to  look  at  them.  But  why 
undertake  to  bring  home  one  of  these  vegetable 
elephants  as  a  specimen,  when  we  know  that  it  will 
require  a  thousand  years  for  its  growth,  and  that  most 
of  us  will  come  a  little  short  of  that  measure  of  time  ? 
Some  trees,  may  be  planted  for  posterity,  and  others 
may  be  safely  left  to  take  their  chances.  If  any  one 
wishes  to  contemplate  upon  his  grounds  a  shrub  of 
the  future  dimensions  of  one  of  the  Calaveras  group, 
let  him  plant  it  at  once.  Most  of  the  vegetable 
monsters  went  out  with  the  ichthyosuarus,  and  as  for 
the  few  that  remain,  they  will  yet  be  an  affront  to  the 
pigmies  who  are  swarming  on  the  earth. 

"Why  did  we  plant  cherry  trees  along  the  rear 
fence?"  To  make  friends  with  the  birds  and  the 
children.  You  can  get  more  songs  from  the  birds, 
and  more  of  song  and  glee  from  the  children, 
on  a  small  investment  in  cherry  trees  than  in  any 
other  way.  Those  last  year's  birds'  nests  tell  the 
story.  The  robin,  thrush,  oriole  and  linnet  will 
come  early  and  stay  late.  Groups  of  children  will 
come  in  the  front  way,  and  will  never  be  so  happy 
as  when  invited  to  go  down  the  rear  garden  walk, 
unless  in  the  supremest  moments  when  they  step 


158  THE  HOUSE  ON    THE  HILL. 

from  your  shoulders  into  the  trees,  and  never  come 
back  until  they  •  have  closed  their  fingers  on  the 
last  cherry.  The  man  who  is  not  satisfied  to  divide 
all  his  cherries  with  the  birds  and  the  children  is 
a  curmudgeon ;  notably  so  is  he  who  plants  cherry 
trees  in  front  of  his  lot,  and  gets  into  a  white 
heat  of  rage  because  boys  of  average  Sunday  school 
antecedents  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  borrow 
the  fruit.  Besides,  the  eclectic  judgment  of  children, 
the  sparrow,  the  yellow-jacket  and  the  honey-bee  will 
always  tell  you  where  the  best  nectarines  and  plums 
may  be  found. 

It  is  well  to  reserve  a  nook  for  little  experiments 
in  horticulture  or  floriculture  wjiich  one  wishes  to 
make.  A  great  many  theories  may  be  brought  home 
and  decently  buried,  or  be  made  to  sprout  in  such  a 
corner.  The  larger  the  spaces,  the  more  one  will  be 
tempted  to  use  the  spade  at  odd  hours ;  and  none  of 
us  has  yet  found  out  all  the  remedial  qualities  of  dry 
earth  freshly  turned  over  day  after  day.  A  hard 
day's  work,  taxing  brain  more  than  hands,  brings  on 
a  degree  of  nervous  irritability.  There  is  a  dry 
electrical  atmosphere ;  the  attrition  of  trade  winds 
and  sand  half  the  year ;  and  the  rushing  to  and  fro 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  159 

of  busy  and  excited  men,  charged  as  full  of  electricity 
as  they  can  hold,  and  bent  upon  charging  everybody 
else,  so  that  at  nightfall  the  sparks  will  snap  at  the 
finger-ends,  and  the  air  will  crackle  like  a  brush-heap 
just  set  on  fire.  Now,  the  earth  is  a  very  good 
conductor.  It  is  better  to  let  this  surplus  electricity 
run  down  the  fingers  on  to  the  spade,  and  along  its 
shining  steel  blade  into  the  ground,  than  to  blow  up 
your  best  friend.  An  hour  of  honest  battle  with  the 
weeds  is  better  than  any  domestic  thunder  storm. 
By  that  time  the  sun  will  have  dropped  down  into 
the  ocean,  just  beyond  the  Golden  Gate,  glorifying 
garden  and  hill-top,  and  setting,  for  a  moment,  its 
lamp  of  flame  in  the  western  windows.  Every  plant 
and  shrub  will  have  some  part  in  a  subtile  and 
soothing  ministry ;  and  then,  if  ever,  it  will  occur  to 
you  that  this  is  a  mellow  old  world  after  all. 


THE 


Oil  THE  HILL, 


THE    GARDEN    ON    THE    HILL. 


IT  was  a  plausible  theory,  and  given  out  in  a 
demure  and  confiding  way  by  a  feminine  oracle,  that 
honeysuckle  cuttings  should  each  be  inserted  in  a 
potato,  and  so  planted.  As  the  scion  had  no  root 
and  needed  moisture,  it  would  be  supplied  by  the 
potato.  It  seemed  the  very  thing  to  do.  The  wonder 
was  that  so  simple  an  expedient  had  not  been 
suggested  before.  That  theory  was  honestly  tested, 
and  it  has  since  been  laid  on  the  top  shelf  with  a 
great  many  other  feminine  theories  about  floriculture. 
Twenty  honeysuckle  scions  were  each  planted  with 
one  end  in  an  enormous  red  potato.  Never  did  one 
of  those  honeysuckles  grow ;  but  there  sprang  up 
such  a  growth  of  potatoes  as  never  had  been  seen 
on  the  hill.  They  were  under  the  doorstep,  under 
the  foundation  of  the  house;  they  shot  up  everywhere. 
Was  that  the  last  of  the  misadventure?  By  no- 
manner  of  means.  In  the  very  porch  of  the  church 
that  daughter  of  Eve  inquired  slily,  "  How  are  your 


1 64  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

honeysuckles?"     And  then  she  glided  in  as  if  she 
had  done  nothing  for  which  she  needed  forgiveness. 

Certain  grafting  experiments  came  out  a  shade 
better.  But  every  graft  put  in  on  the  south  side  of  a 
tree  died,  while  those  on  the  north  side  nearly  all 
lived.  These  were  protected  by  some  degree  of 
shade,  while  the  hot  sun  melted  the  wax  on  the  south 
side,  which  ran  down  in  liquid  streams  of  resin  and 
poisoned  the  bark  around  the  cleft.  All  this  might 
have  been  known  in  advance.  But  a  little  modicum 
of  knowledge  learned  by  costly  experience  will  stick 
to  one  through  life,  while  that  which  costs  nothing  is 
rarely  laid  up  as  worth  having.  It  ought  to  be 
known,  also,  that  there  is  no  better  plan  of  grafting 
a  tree  than  that  which  our  ancestors  followed  a 
hundred  years  ago,  when,  with  a  little  moist  clay 
and  top-tow,  every  scion  inserted  lived.  Then  the 
cider  mill  was  an  orthodox  institution  in  every 
neighborhood.  It  is  not  worth  your  while  to  dissent 
from  that  proposition,  when  you  have  probably  played 
truant  from  a  summer  school  to  ride  around  on  the 
sweep  of  a  cider  mill,  and  suck  the  new  cider  through 
a  straw,  being  stung  the  meanwhile  occasionally  by  a 
"yellow-jacket."  Even  now  a  cider  mill  by  the 


THE  GARDEN  ON   THE  HILL.  165 

roadside,  with  the  sour  pomace  scattered  about,  is  a 
humanizing  institution.  It  will  send  you  back  to  the 
old  orchard,  the  great  branching  elm,  and  the 
wide-spreading  roof  slanting  down  in  the  rear,  quicker 
than  any  other  sign  or  symbol  to  be  found  along  the 
dusty  way  of  middle  life.  For  one  hour's  ride  on 
that  sweep,  and  a  nibble  at  the  spice-apples  sliding 
down  the  hopper,  one  might  still  be  consoled  for  the 
dreadful  frown  of  the  school  mistress,  and  for  that 
feminine  refinement  on  purgatorial  cruelty  which 
compelled  the  truant  to  stand  for  an  hour  on  one 
leg,  and  to  hold  out  a  bible  at  arm's  length  in  his 
dexter  hand.  An  acidulated  school  mistress,  who 
had  been  losing  her  sweetness  for  forty  years,  never 
was  a  desirable  object  to  meet,  after  having  tasted  the 
sweets  on  a  summer  day  at  a  cider  mill.  The  hornets 
were  well  enough  in  their  way,  but  the  sting  of  that 
school  mistress  was  not. 

Note,  too,  that  this  grafting  process  reaches  over 
beyond  your  apple  trees.  The  best  races,  or  sub 
divisions  of  people,  come  of  the  best  stocks  which 
are  continually  grafted  on.  Your  blue  blood  is  mixed 
with  more  not  so  blue,  or  the  stock  runs  out.  Down 
at  the  root  of  those  apple  trees  yonder  you  may  find 


1 66  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

traces  of  the  woolly  aphis.  It  is  a  sign  that  the 
constitution  of  such  trees  has  been  weakened. 
Digging  down  you  remove  the  aphis,  put  fresh  soil 
around  the  tree,  scrape  the  rusty  trunk,  cut  off  the 
top,  and  put  in  two  or  three  grafts  from  a  stock  that 
has  vitality;  and  very  soon  this  rejuvenated  tree, 
bending  under  its  weight  of  fruit  in  early  Autumn,  is 
something  of  which  no  amateur  horticulturist  need 
be  ashamed.  A  thoroughbred  people  will  impress 
language,  law,  and  custom,  as  none  other  can  upon 
the  world.  It  is  not  isolation  which  secures  this 
result,  but  the  taking  of  many  stocks  upon  the 
original  trunk.  If  pulmonary  New  England  is  to  be 
physically  resuscitated,  it  will  not  come  of  boasting 
of  revolutionary  sires,  but  rather  because  Germans, 
Irish,  Danes  and  Swedes  are  thronging  all  the  avenues 
of  her  busy  life. 

The  transition  from  grafting  to  budding  is  natural 
enough.  Those  twenty  white  stakes  stand  as  so 
many  monuments  of  another  horticultural  disaster. 
On  a  September  day,  twenty  buds,  so  rare  that  the 
original  stock  could  not  be  bought  at  any  price,  had 
been  deftly  slipped  into  as  many  "suckers,"  which 
had  come  out  from  the  roots  of  as  many  rose  bushes. 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  167 

The  next  Spring  they  were  set  and  staked,  and  each 
was  about  as  precious  as  the  right  eye  of  any  amateur 
horticulturist.  The  small  buds  had  developed  into 
branches  a  foot  long ;  great  double  peerless  roses  had 
been  hanging  pendent  from  the  original  stocks — roses 
with  regal  names  and  titles.  There  would  have  been 
twenty  glorified  specimens  of  floriculture  to-day,  but 
for  that  foreign  gardener  who  had  been  "  educated  in 
the  best  schools  in  Europe,"  who  knew  everything, 
and  could  not  be  told  anything.  Roses  must  be  cut 
in  to  make  new  wood.  Before  night  he  had  clipped 
those  twenty  standards  each  below  the  bud,  and  had 
taken  himself  off  with  his  diabolical  shears,  his 
insufferable  conceit,  and  his  rustic  innocence.  He 
never  came  back  to  look  at  the  work  of  his  hands, 
nor  to  hear  the  wish  (mildly  expressed)  that  a  pair 
of  shears  might  be  invented  which  would  shorten 
the  stature  of  that  gardener  at  least  a  foot.  There 
was  a  special  aggravation  of  the  case,  because  we 
had  been  nursing  a  theory  for  years,  that  by  splitting 
two  rose-germs  of  different  kinds,  and  putting  the 
odd  halves  together,  if  growth  could  then  be 
induced,  there  would  be  a  hybrid  rose — either  the 
color  of  the  one  would  be  distinct  on  one  side,  and 


1 68  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

the  other  on  the  opposite  side,  or  the  rose  would  be 
mottled,  having  red  and  white  spots  on  each  leaf. 
This  Siamese  bud  had  started  finely.  Bad  luck  to 
the  gardener's  shears  which  had  abbreviated  that 
experiment  and  enveloped  the  vexed  question  again 
in  darkness.  But  here  is  a  bed  of  mottled  pinks, 
and  these  could  have  all  been  the  result  of  crosses. 
It  may  be  that  the  humming  birds,  going  from  one 
blossom  to  another,  have  mixed  the  pollen,  or  some 
hidden  law  may  be  active  which  cannot  be  traced. 
Note,  too,  that  besides  this  promiscuous  fleck  of  red 
and  white,  in  not  a  few  instances  a  single  flower  will 
have  the  red  on  one-half  and  the  white  on  the  other. 
The  florists  call  this  sporting.  The  same  class  of 
facts  may  be  observed  in  the  double  petunias,  all 
of  which  are  hybrids,  or  nearly  so — a  purple,  white, 
and  red  leaf  being  found  in  a  single  flower.  There 
are  apples,  too  (or  there  were  twenty  years  ago), 
one-half  of  which  were  sour  and  the  other  half 
sweet.  The  qualities  were  not  interblended,  and 
even  the  colors  were  separate. 

It  was  a  pretty  conceit,  and  mollifying  withal, 
that  a  feminine  florist  connected  with  pansies : 
"When  you  go  past  them  they  will  turn  their  heads 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  169 

toward  you,  greeting  you  so  lovingly."  That  little 
myth  might  be  strung  on  the  same  string  with  the 
buttercup,  which  only  reflects  its  golden  hue  upon 
the  chins  of  those  who  love  June  butter. 

That  alfalfa  experiment  is  only  admitted  by  special 
grace  under  the  head  of  floriculture,  although  the 
lucerne  has  no  lack  of  handsome  blossoms.  A 
little  seed  was  sprinkled  on  the  ground  after  the 
spring  rains  and  forgotten.  When  the  winter  rains 
came  again,  that  alfalfa  reached  out  for  both  the 
zenith  and  nadir.  Three  times  a  year  it  is  cut 
to  keep  it  from  falling  down.  The  details  are 
suppressed  here,  with  only  an  intimation  that  they 
are  sufficient  for  several  agricultural  addresses.  If 
that  man  is  a  benefactor  who  has  made  two  blades 
of  grass  grow  in  the  place  of  one,  what  is  he  who 
has  made  alfalfa  shoot  up  at  the  rate  of  seven  tons 
to  the  acre,  in  the  place  of  miserable  sorrel-top? 
But  there  was  a  discount  upon  that  experiment. 
The  alfalfa  drew  to  it  all  the  gophers  in  the 
neighborhood.  They  mined  and  countermined,  until 
the  whole  area  had  been  honeycombed.  They 
multiplied  by  scores  and  hundreds.  These  rodents 
drew  together  all  the  vagrant  cats  in  the  neighbor- 


1 70  THE  GARDEN  ON   THE  HILL. 

hood,  which  made  this  corner  of  the  garden  a 
common  hunting  ground.  Here  upon  this  small 
area  was  a  crop  of  alfalfa,  a  crop  of  gophers— which 
no  man  has  numbered  to  this  day — and  a  •  crop  of 
cats,  as  fiercely  predatory  and  as  unrelenting  in  a 
skirmish  as  were  ever  put  in  battle  array.  But 
somehow  this  experiment  has  not  been  satisfactory. 
It  has  branched  out  in  too  many  ways.  Two 
empty  arnica  bottles  suggest  the  muscular  strains 
which  came  from  moderating  those  cats  with  an 
occasional  volley  of  rocks.  And  at  this  writing, 
half  a  dozen  felines  are  on  the  fence  looking  solemnly 
down  at  the  sapping  and  mining  which  is  going 
on  below. 

There  are  no  birds  in  this  region  which  domesticate 
so  readily  as  the  linnets,  and  which  improve  more 
on  an  intimate  acquaintance.  They  are  not  so 
obstreperous  as  the  wren,  nor  so  shy  as  the  lark  and 
the  robin.  The  latter  is  a  migratory  bird,  coming 
down  to  this  latitude  only  in  the  Winter,  and  going 
north  for  a  nesting  in  the  Spring.  A  single  robin 
has  lived  in  the  garden  all  Winter,  becoming  nearly 
as  tame  as  a  chicken,  following  the  man  with  the 
spading-fork,  and  snapping  up  the  worms  in  a  sharp 


THE  GARDEN  ON   THE  HILL.  171 

competition  with  his  cousin,  the  brown  thrush.  The 
former,  in  place  of  any  song,  has  a  lonesome  and 
fugitive  call,  as  though  waiting  for  his  mate.  He  is 
probably  a  bachelor,  who  has  not  yet  set  up  an 
establishment  of  his  own.  A  little  girl,  having 
gravely  considered  the  case,  suggests  that  he  ought 
to  send  a  letter  inviting  a  mate  to  come.  O,  my 
little  friend !  oral  communication  is  much  more 
interesting  ;  at  least,  it  was  so  in  our  time.  Neither 
was  it  considered  cowardice  if  the  heart  came  up 
into  the  throat. 

The  linnets  are  model  birds  in  their  domestic  life. 
A  pair  built  a  nest  last  year  under  the  porch,  and, 
having  brought  up  one  family  of  four  and  dismissed 
them,  the  pair  furbished  up  the  nest  again  and 
brought  up  a  family  of  four  more  the  same  season. 
They  have  held  secret  conferences  over  the  nest 
recently,  and  it  evidently  falls  in  with  their  views  of 
domestic  economy  to  use  it  again.  It  is  possible  that 
they  appreciated  a  little  device  which  we  had  to 
adopt  for  their  safety.  As  the  nest  was  at  the 
extremity  of  a  festoon  of  vines,  there  was  nothing 
to  hinder  the  house-cat  from  going  up  and  feasting  on 
callow  birds.  An  odd  lot  of  trout  hooks,  fastened 


172  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

to   the   lower   vines,    operated    as    a    powerful   non 
conductor. 

Some  years  ago,  a  pair  of  linnets  having  made  their 
nest  in  the  porch  of  another  house,  everything  went 
well  until  the  young  had  just  appeared ;  then  the 
mother  disappeared  one  night,  and  the  displaced 
vines  in  the  morning  told  the  whole  story.  Four 
orphan  birds  appealed  to  the  sympathies  of  the  young 
folk.  The  nest  was  taken  into  the  house,  the  birds 
carefully  covered  with  cotton,  and  every  effort  was 
made  to  save  them.  They  would  eat  nothing,  and, 
as  a  last  resort,  the  nest  was  replaced  in  the  vines. 
The  father  came  back  soon,  talked  with  his  children, 
brooded  them,  fed  them  day  after  day,  brought  them 
up  to  maturity,  and  turned  out  as  prosperous  a  family 
of  young  linnets  as  there  was  in  that  neighborhood. 
Mr.  Linnet  can  have  the  most  positive  certificate  of 
rare  domestic  virtues.  There  is  the  slight  drawback 
that  he  paints,  does  all  the  singing,  and  is  rather 
vain ;  while  Mrs.  Linnet  is  a  plain,  unassuming  bird, 
always  clad  in  gray,  and  is  not  up  in  music.  All 
through  the  realm  of  ornithology  the  male  bird  has 
the  brightest  colors  and  does  the  singing.  But 
analogy  is  all  at  fault  when  you  come  to  men  and 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  173 

women.  Who  puts  on  all  the  bright  colors  here, 
paints,  and  carols  upon  the  topmost  bough  of  the 
domestic  tree?  By  what  law  has  this  order  been 
reversed?  And  yet  the  sum  of  your  political 
economy  is,  that  a  woman  who  can  dress  more,  use 
pigments  more  cunningly,  and  talk  faster,  and  sing 
better  than  a  man,  shall  not  vote !  Is  that  the  way 
to  set  up  your  ideal  republic  ? 

One  may  learn  secrets  of  ornithology  in  the 
garden  which  the  books  will  not  yield  up.  That 
boy  coming  up  the  rear  garden  walk,  who  has 
swung  himself  into  a  pear  tree  to  look  into  the 
nest  of  a  finch,  has  done  the  same  thing  con 
secutively  on  a  dozen  mornings.  He  will  be  able 
to  tell  just  how  many  days  are  required  for 
incubation,  and  how  many  days  intervene  before 
the  birds  are  full-fledged.  I  should  have  had  more 
hope  for  him  as  a  future  ornithologist,  had  not 
the  young  heathen  asked  for  the  eggs  to  put  upon 
his  string.  There  is  not  such  a  great  difference, 
after  all,  between  an  Apache  with  a  string  of  scalps 
at  his  belt,  and  a  -  school  boy  with  his  string  of 
birds'  eggs.  If  it  were  not  for  that  infernal  cruelty 
which  has  been  inbred  by  false  teaching,  or  no 


174  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

teaching,  our  relations  with  all  the  lower  forms  of 
life  would  be  intimate  and  confidential,  instead  of 
suspicious  and  oftentimes  revolting.  One  can  match 
the  worst  specimens  of  cannibalism  by  pointing  out 
strings  of  larks  hung  up  by  their  bills  any  day  in 
the  market.  I  know  of  no  cannibal  who  ever 
became  ferocious  enough  to  eat  singing  birds,  or 
to  find  pleasure  in  killing  them. 

There  are  two  or  three  notes  in  the  song  of  the 
lark  which  are  not  surpassed  in  sweetness  by  any 
of  the  oriole  or  finch  family.  If  one  will  take  a 
dash  into  the  country  some  bright  morning,  on 
horseback,  and  note  how  this  joyous  bird  goes 
before  him,  alighting  on  the  fence  and  calling 
down  a  benediction  from  the  heavens,  either  he 
will  come  back  filled  with  gladness,  or  his  liver 
trouble  has  got  the  best  of  him.  All  the  song 
birds  of  much  note  in  this  State  may  be  assigned 
to  the  three  families  of  thrushes,  orioles  and  finches. 
In  the  first  of  these  we  have  the  robin ;  in  the 
second,  the  lark ;  and  in  the  third,  the  linnet.  The 
sub-families  will  reach  nearly  a  hundred,  and  there 
is  not  one  of  them  which  will  not  pay  in  songs  and 
in  the  destruction  of  insects  for  all  the  mischief  he 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  175 

does.  Now,  a  bird  that  pays  his  bills  in  advance,  has 
a  right  to  protection.  Observe,  too,  how  soon  they 
recognize  any  attempt  to  establish  friendly  relations 
with  them.  Last  year  a  finch  had  her  feet  entangled 
by  a  string  with  which  she  had  lined  her  nest.  A 
little  help  rendered  to  set  her  free,  made  her  an 
intimate  friend,  and  a  shallow  pan  of  water  in  the 
grass  drew  daily  dividends  of  fresh  songs.  A  box 
with  a  few  holes  in  it,  set  on  a  post,  will  not  remain 
empty  a  year;  either  the  blue-birds  or  the  martins 
will  take  possession  of  it. 

A  garden  ought  to  be  planned  as  much  for  the 
birds  as  for  lawns  and  flowers.  The  hedges  will 
afford  hiding-places  for  timid  birds,  and  shade  on 
hot  days.  The  tall  trees  will  furnish  perches  when 
they  want  to  sing ;  and  a  well-fed  bird,  that  has  no 
family  trouble  on  hand,  wants  to  sing  nearly  all  his 
leisure  time.  As  for  the  cherries  and  small  fruits, 
the  birds  are  only  gentle  communists.  If  we  cannot 
tolerate  a  division  made  with  all  the  inspiration  of 
song,  and  which  leaves  us  at  least  one  side  of  the 
cherry,  how  are  we  to  tolerate  that  division  predicted 
by  some  of  the  labor  prophets,  if  made  with  the 
music  of  paving-stones  and  much  fragile  crockery  ? 


176  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

One  cannot  go  far  into  the  woods  in  any  direction 
without  observing  what  a  protest  all  the  birds  utter 
at  first  There  are  harsh  screams,  sharp  notes  of 
warning,  and  general  scolding.  Now,  every  bird  has 
a  great  deal  of  curiosity  to  take  a  look  at  strangers. 
For  a  time  they  flit  about  in  the  tall  tree-tops,  and 
afterward  begin  to  hop  down  to  lower  limbs,  and, 
gradually  descending,  come  to  the  ground,  or  on  to 
low  bushes.  By  remaining  quiet  an  hour  or  two,  a 
dozen  or  more  will  circle  around  within  a  few  feet, 
turning  their  heads  on  one  side  occasionally,  and 
quizzing  in  a  saucy,  merry  way.  In  a  little  while 
one  may  be  on  intimate  terms  with  the  very  birds 
which  protested  so  loudly  at  his  coming.  They  will 
tell  him  a  great  many  secrets.  The  leaves  of  his 
book  on  ornithology  may  be  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
square,  but  what  can  not  be  read  on  one  day  may 
be  read  on  some  other.  Even  an  owl  burrowing  with 
a  ground-squirrel,  and  both  agreeing  very  well  as 
tenants  in  common  with  a  rattlesnake,  may  suggest 
questions  of  affinity  and  community  which  it  might 
be  inconvenient  to  answer  at  once.  If  you  prefer 
to  have  some  readings  in  a  book  of  nature,  you  can 
turn  down  a  leaf  and  go  back  the  next  day  with  the 


THE  GARDEN  ON   THE  HILL.  177 

certainty  that  no  one  has  lugged  off  the  volume. 
And  if  your  finger-mark  is  a  tree  250  feet  high,  there 
will  be  no  great  difficulty  in  finding  the  place. 

But  a  garden  of  a  single  acre  can  only  be  at  most, 
a  diamond  edition  of  nature.  A  great  deal  must  be 
left  out.  The  owl,  as  a  singing-bird,  is  not  wanted ; 
and,  although  tadpoles  may  be  raised  in  the  little 
fish-pond,  it  is  not  expected  that  the  hippopotamus 
will  come  there  to  wallow.  The  birds  must  of 
necessity  be  few  and  select.  If  the  lark  sometimes 
sings  at  sunrise  on  the  lower  fence,  and  the  thrush 
and  the  linnet  bid  you  good  morning  out  of  the 
nearest  tree-tops,  you  will  not  fail  to  respond,  unless 
on  that  particular  morning  when  you  especially  need 
an  extract  of  dandelion;  and  that  will  generally 
happen  when  the  golden  blossoms  can  be  found 
along  the  way-side.  It  might  be  well,  also,  to 
leave  a  little  nook  for  sage  and  worm-wood.  They 
are  not  only  handsome  plants  in  their  way,  but 
the  average  wisdom  of  any  grandmother  will  unfold 
their  remedial  properties. 

There  are  seven  well-defined  species  of  humming 
birds  to  be  found  in  this  State,  and  two  or  three 
more  not  described,  except  in  the  unpublished  notes 


178  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

of  Grayson.  None  of  these  birds  are  singers;  the 
best  they  can  do  is  to  make  a  noise  like  the  turning 
of  a  small  ratchet-wheel.  But  somehow,  this  ungenial, 
obstreperous  little  bird,  darting  in  a  saucy  way  close 
to  one's  ears,  and  then,  balancing  over  a  flower,  never 
ceases  to  excite  interest  He  might  have  dropped 
out  of  Paradise,  if  it  were  not  for  his  temper,  which 
lacks  any  heavenly  quality,  and  for  his  song,  which 
would  soon  raise  a  mutiny  above  or  below.  He  is 
a  half  unreal  bird ;  and  we  do  not  know  what  soul  in 
a  transition  state  may  be  lodged  in  his  little  body. 
There  are  a  great  many  souls  small  enough  to  occupy 
it.  Now,  the  house-cat  had  been  taught,  after  a  long 
time,  to  respect  birds,  and  that  to  look  longingly  at  a 
humming-bird  was  something  akin  to  sacrilege.  But 
original  sin,  or  instinct,  was  always  ready  to  break 
out  at  the  sight  of  a  humming-bird.  One  evening 
she  trotted  down  the  garden  walk  with  head  up  and  a 
diminutive  bird  in  her  mouth.  It  took  a  lively  turn 
of  three  times  or  more  around  that  acre  lot  to 
overhaul  that  cat ;  nor  was  it  done  until  the  pursuer 
was  thoroughly  red  in  the  face  and  blown,  having 
just  strength  enough  left  to  gripe  her  by  the  throat 
and  make  her  let  go.  It  was  the  poorest  job  of 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  179 

bird-philanthropy  ever  done  in  that  garden.  There 
was  nothing  to  reward  a  merciful  man  but  a  humming 
miller,  of  just  the  size  and  finish,  from  bill  to  wings, 
of  a  humming-bird,  but  only  an  ugly  bug  as  to  his 
posterior  half — a  creature  with  his  head  and  wings 
over  in  the  realms  of  ornithology,  and  the  rest  of 
his  ugly  body  still  in  the  field  of  entomology.  The 
quality  of  mercy  is  strained  which  undertakes  to 
protect  any  such  half-formed  work  of  creation.  When, 
therefore,  a  few  evenings  afterward,  a  shrike,  or 
butcher-bird,  came  into  the  garden,  devoured  half 
a  dozen  of  these  bogus  humming-birds,  and  hung 
up  as  many  more  on  the  thorns  of  a  honey-locust, 
that  circumstance  suggested  no  doubt  about  the 
eternal  fitness  of  things. 

The  quail  is  easily  domesticated  in  any  garden, 
and,  if  protected,  will  become  as  tame  as  the 
chickens.  I  have  more  than  once  seen  them  run 
where  a  hen  was  scratching,  and  pick  up  whatever 
could  be  found.  Some  years  ago,  while  mowing  the 
grass  around  the  edges  of  another  garden,  a  nest 
was  discovered  containing  a  dozen  hen's  eggs  and 
seventeen  quail's  eggs.  The  village  savants  never 
did  fairly  settle  the  questions  raised  about  that  nest. 


i8o  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

Did  the  hen  have  the  prior  right,  first  choosing  the 
place  and  making  the  nest?  or  did  the  quail  pre-empt, 
and  was  the  hen  an  unlawful  squatter?  Did  they 
lay  on  alternate  days,  or  concurrently  as  to  time? 
And  how  did  the  eggs  get  that  arrangement  by  which 
all  the  crevices  were  filled  with  the  smaller  ones  ? 
And  which  did  the  incubating  ?  The  quail  could  not 
cover  the  nest.  But  nearly  all  the  eggs  of  both  sorts 
were  ultimately  hatched.  It  had  been  settled  before 
that  time,  by  our  system  of  patriarchial  jurisprudence, 
that  the  issue  followed  the  condition  of  the  mother. 
The  chicks  respected  that  principle,  since  so  rudely 
questioned,  and  each  followed  its  mother,  so  that 
substantial  justice  was  done,  and  the  heavens  did 
not  fall. 

No  garden  is  well  stocked  without  a  pair  or  two 
of  toads.  They  will  learn  to  distinguish  your  foot 
steps  from  those  of  a  stranger,  as  they  come  out  at 
twilight.  The  toad  is  a  philosopher,  and  is  the  most 
self-contained  of  all  living  things.  He  meditates  all 
day  in  the  shade,  and  takes  his  dinner  promptly  at 
twilight.  That  dinner  may  require  a  thousand  insects. 
The  dart  of  his  tongue  is  never  made  amiss.  If  you 
cannot  cultivate  him  for  his  beauty — and  there  may 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  181 

be  a  doubt  on  that  score — you  can  tolerate  him  for 
his  honest  work.  There  is  I  some  cant  about  the 
ugliness  of  the  toad  that  you  would  not  respect  when 
you  have  taught  a  pair  to  come  out  of  their  hiding 
places  at  your  call,  have  given  them  pet  names,  and 
have  seen  them  slay  the  remorseless  mosquito  If 
you  step  on  one  after  nightfall,  it  will  be  useless  to 
objurgate.  You  cannot  provoke  him  to  talk  back. 

Consider  what  an  advantage  the  toad  has  in 
another  respect.  He  not  only  hibernates  a  part  of 
the  year,  and  thus  saves  his  board-bills,  but  he  has 
been  known  to  suspend  active  life  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  or  more;  as  when,  getting  into  a 
hollow  tree,  the  orifice  has  been  filled  up,  or  he 
has  been  wedged  in  the  cleft  of  a  rock.  But  when 
restored,  he  resumes  life  with  no  inconvenience  to  his 
digestion.  What  might  be  gained  if  one  only  had 
the  vitality  of  this  batrachian  !  You  have  been  over 
taken  by  a  stupidly  dull  era,  or  are  disgusted  with 
life.  What  an  advantage  to  call  on  some  friend  to 
pack  you  away  in  ice,  and  to  thaw  you  out  only  when 
the  next  quarter-century  bell  rings  !  Since  we  cannot 
go  safely  over  this  bridge  with  the  batrachian,  it  is 
not  well  to  put  such  a  discount  on  his  ugliness,  nor 


1 82  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

is  it  well  to  be  too  exclamatory,  if  you  tread  on  him 
in  the  twilight. 

The  garden  is  the  place  to  test  a  great  many  pretty 
theories.  And  what  if  some  of  them  fail  ?  Is  not 
the  sum  of  our  knowledge  derived  from  failures, 
greater  than  all  we  have  ever  gained  by  successes  ? 
A  feminine  oracle,  not  content  with  her  honeysuckle 
theory,  had  said  :  "You  must  not  pull  up  a  plant  nor 
a  vine  that  springs  up  spontaneously.  Let  it  grow. 
There  is  luck  in  it."  When,  therefore,  a  melon-vine 
made  its  appearance  quite  in  the  wrong  place,  it  was 
spared  through  the  wisdom  of  that  oracle.  It  went 
sprawling  over  the  ground,  choking  more  delicate 
plants,  and  rioting  day  by  day  in  the  warm  sun  and 
the  rich  loam  underneath.  Nearly  all  its  blossoms 
fell  off  without  fruitage.  One  melon  took  up  all  the 
life  of  the  vine,  and  grew  wonderfully.  There  had 
been  tape-line  measurements  without  number.  When 
it  gave  out  a  satisfactory  sound  by  snapping  it  with 
thumb  and  finger,  and  the  nearest  tendril  had  dried 
up,  it  was  held  to  be  fully  ripe.  It  was  very  ripe. 
A  gopher  had  mined  under  that  melon,  and,  not 
content  with  eating  out  the  entire  pulp,  had,  in  the 
very  wantonness  of  his  deviltry,  tamped  the  shell 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  183 

full  of  dirt !  Where  was  the  luck  in  this  spontaneous 
growth?  Nor  did  the  matter  end  here.  Sometime 
thereafter  the  following  note,  written  in  a  feminine 
hand,  was  found  pinned  to  that  shell : 

"GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL,  August  20,  187 — . 

"MR.  B :  Dear  Sir-^-Since  you  have  had  the  benefit 

of  my  discovery  of  the  new  method  of  planting  honeysuckles 
inserted  in  potatoes,  and  you  have  also  tested  my  theory  of 
the  luck  there  is  in  melon-vines  of  spontaneous  growth,  it 
has  occurred  to  me  that  you  would  fully  appreciate  my  skill 
and  attainments.  Now,  I  expect  to  be  a  candidate  for  the 
Chair  of  Horticulture  and  Floriculture  in  the  University.  I 
must  have  strong  recommendations.  Will  you  be  kind  enough 
to  furnish  me  a  certificate  in  which  full  justice  is  done  to  my 
attainments?  My  success  may  hinge  on  that  certificate. 
Make  it  as  strong  as  you  can  with  a  good  conscience. 

AGRAPINA. 

P.  S. — I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  if  you  had  pinched  out 
the  eyes  of  the  tubers  in  that  first  experiment,  while  you 
would  have  had  less  potatoes,  you  might  not  have  had  any 
more  honeysuckles."  A. 

That  certificate  was  fully  prepared.  If  we  know 
anything  about  our  mother  tongue,  the  qualifications 
of  the  applicant  were  fully  set  out.  Singularly 
enough,  she  has  never  applied  in  person  for  the 
document. 

The  almond  tree  is  worthy  of  a  place  in  every 
garden,  even  if  it  never  fruits.  The  pale  blush  of 


184  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

its  blossoms  is  the  herald  of  Spring.  In  the  warm 
days  of  February  it  puts  on  a  pink  dress,  and  is 
glorified.  The  bees  come  out,  lured  evidently  by 
the  scent  of  its  flowers ;  but  they  flit  about  in  a 
fugitive  way,  as  if  not  satisfied  with  what  they  had 
found.  There  are  small  resources  of  honey  in  the 
almond  blossoms ;  so  much  might  be  learned  from 
the  spiteful  way  in  which  the  humming-birds  darted 
off  after  sounding  a  little  with  their  long  bills. 
Something  like  one  almond  came  to  maturity  for 
every  thousand  buds  which  unfolded  in  the  early 
Spring.  Two  or  three  hundred  "  paper  shells  "  clung 
to  the  tree  hard  by  the  library  door,  in  the  late 
Autumn.  Whatever  had  been  the  fortune  of  other 
almond  growers,  here  was  a  crop  by  an  amateur.  It 
was  of  no  consequence  that  there  had  been  a  great 
discrepancy  between  flowers  and  fruit.  Precious 
things  are  never  abundant.  No,  by  no  manner  of 
means,  were  these  almonds  to  grace  any  Thanksgiving 
table.  Let  thanks  be  given  for  the  brown  shells 
clinging  to  the  tree,  and  for  whatever  of  internal  good 
this  outwardness  might  suggest.  And  not  least,  for 
the  humming-bird's  nest  on  the  end  of  a  pendent 
limb,  so  like  a  warty  excrescence  of  the  tree  as  not  to 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  185 

be  observed  by  careless  eyes — and  for  that  mutual 
confidence  when  curly-headed  children  were  lifted 
up,  and  birds  and  children  communed  face  to  face, 
chirruped,  and  were  glad. 

"What  became  of  the  almonds?"  There  was  a 
case  of  misplaced  confidence.  It  was  well  enough 
that  the  finch,  the  linnet,  the  chat  and  the  sparrow, 
had  plucked  the  cherries,  sampled  the  plums,  and 
had  taken  kindly  to  the  mellow  side  of  the  pears. 
December  had  come.  Only  here  and  there  a 
fugitive  gross-beak  flitted  about — a  bird  with  a 
wonderful  capacity  for  mellow  song,  but  silent,  as 
if  never  a  note  had  gone  out  of  his  capacious  throat 
and  chubby  bill.  Perhaps  they  could  be  induced  to 
sing  in  midwinter  if  confidence  could  be  established. 
Half  a  dozen  almonds  were  laid  on  the  walk,  which 
a  pair  of  gross-beaks  "shucked"  with  wonderful 
facility.  That  stout,  short  beak  is  fitted  for  a  nut 
eater.  Half  an  hour  afterward  there  were  twenty 
gross-beaks  on  that  almond  tree;  and  forty  minutes 
later,  they  had  stored  every  almond  in  their  crops, 
cutting  away  the  shells  as  deftly  as  one  could  do  with 
a  sharp  knife.  So  tame  and  bold  were  they  that  one 
could  have  nearly  reached  them  with  his  hand.  Not 


1 86  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

a  note  was  given  in  return,  nothing  but  a  twitter,  as 
much  as  to  say,  "  This  is  a  royal  dinner ;  there  were 
just  enough  nuts  to  go  round."  And  then  they  went 
off  silently  into  the  blue  sky. 

The  first  man,  being  historically  and  traditionally 
perfect,  had  a  garden  as  his  noblest  allotment.  The 
farther  the  race  drifts  away  from  the  cultivation  of 
the  soil,  the  nearer  it  gets  to  barbarism.  The  Apache 
is  not  a  good  horticulturist,  and  therefore  there  is  no 
gentleness  in  his  blood.  Teach  him  to  love  and 
cultivate  a  garden,  and  he  is  no  longer  a  savage. 
The  best  thought  and  the  best  inspiration  may  come 
to  one  when  all  the  gentler  ministries  of  his  garden 
wait  upon  him — when  the  soul  of  things  is  concurrent 
with  his  own,  and  bee  and  almond  blossom,  the  rose, 
and  the  smallest  song-sparrow  in  the  tree-top,  are 
revelators  and  instructors. 


THE  HOEQEgTEftD  BY  THE  SE& 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 


THE  sighing  and  respiration  of  the  great  sea  to-day 
was  wonderfully  soothing,  until  there  was  a  series  of 
dull  explosions,  like  the  percussion  of  far-off  gunnery. 
One  may  hear  these  sounds  on  a  still  midsummer 
day,  or  at  midnight,  when  the  sea  is  pulsing  and 
breaking  along  the  shore  line.  It  required  two  hours 
to  find  out  the  secret.  Along  these  chalk  cliffs  there 
are  great  caverns,  wind  and  wave  worn.  Standing 
near  the  mouth  of  one  of  them,  a  "boomer"  came 
surging  along,  and  placed  its  watery  seal  over  the 
mouth,  driving  and  pressing  the  atmosphere  before 
it.  When  the  seal  was  broken  there  was  an  explosion 
like  a  gun  seaward.  The  turn  of  the  tide  is 
frequently  marked  by  a  series  of  these  boomers,  and 
then  there  is  a  suggestion  of  a  park  of  artillery  under 
the  cliffs,  and  the  long  roll  is  beaten  along  the  shore. 
All  discoveries  are  simple  enough  when  once  the 
secret  has  been  found  out.  How  many  men  walk 
along  the  edge  of  a  discovery  all  their  lives,  and 


190  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

never  quite  enter  into  the  promised  land !  Some 
blundering  successor  stumbles  into  the  fruition  of 
the  great  secret.  There  are  men  within  bow-shot 
of  prizes  as  magnificent  as  ever  crowned  human 
research ;  but  they  will  go  no  farther.  Columbus 
rested  at  the  Antilles ;  the  continent  was  just  beyond. 
If  you  have  got  as  far  as  the  islands,  it  may  be  well, 
before  you  give  up  the  search,  to  look  at  the  sea 
weeds  and  drift-wood,  whether  they  do  not  come 
from  the  mainland.  Having  gathered  and  cooked 
the  mussels,  you  might  as  well  stay  and  eat  them 
as  to  have  another  eat  them  and  throw  the  shells 
after  you.  Charles  Lamb  discourseth  about  the 
mussel  wisely  :  "  Traveling  is  not  good  for  us ;  we 
travel  so  seldom.  How  much  more  dignified  leisure 
hath  a  mussel,  glued  to  his  impassable  rocky  limit, 
two  inches  square !  He  hears  the  tide  roll  over 
him  backward  and  forward  twice  a  day  (as  the 
Salisbury  coach  goes  and  returns  in  eight  and  forty 
hours),  but  knows  better  than  to  take  an  outside 
place  on  the  top  of  it.  He  is  the  owl  of  the  sea, 
Minerva's  fish,  the  fish  of  wisdom."  And  yet  the 
mussel  can  travel,  and  if  detached  will  seek  out  a 
new  location,  and  by  means  of  its  silken  beard,  or 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA.  191 

byssus  threads,  which  it  can  weave  in  a  few  minutes, 
anchor  itself  anew  to  the  rock.  It  has  two  enemies  : 
The  whelk,  a  sort  of  univalve  mussel  wolf,  which 
bores  a  hole  through  the  shell  about  the  size  of  a 
pin,  and  sucks  the  life  out;  then  there  is  a  species 
of  sea-gull  which,  when  all  other  resources  fail,  plucks 
off  the  mussels,  and,  rising  high  enough,  dashes 
them  on  the  rocks ;  from  which  circumstance  ^Esop 
may,  or  may  not,  have  invented  his  story  of  an 
eagle  dashing  a  tortoise  on  the  shining  crown  of 
a  bald-headed  man. 

Yonder,  where  the  surf  frets  the  shore  and  pencils 
a  dark  line  of  kelp,  look  for  the  star-fish  and  the 
limpet,  and  for  mosses  in  ultramarine  and  carmine 
such  as  no  florist  can  match  from  his  garden.  And 
what  is  the  sea  but  a  treasure-house  of  palms  and 
ferns,  of  corals,  and  of  lilies  which  no  eye  hath 
seen,  and  royal  highways,  under  whose  arches  there 
is  an  eternal  procession  of  living  things,  and  glorious 
mausoleums  for  the  dead  ?  This  maritime  discourse 
was  somewhat  abbreviated,  because  the  youngster 
for  whose  benefit  it  had  been  made  suddenly  dis 
appeared  behind  the  rocks.  He  had  begun  some 
experiments  on  his  own  account.  He  had  found 


192  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

out  that  the  abalone  which  cleaves  to  the  rocks  has 
a  wonderful  suction,  and  the  pinching  of  his  finger 
between  the  shell  and  the  rock,  as  in  the  vice  of  a 
blacksmith,  extorted  a  wholesome  yell  and  kept  him 
in  a  grave  and  thoughtful  frame  of  mind  for  five 
minutes.  Anemones  abound  in  all  the  rocky  pools, 
spongy,  unfolding  at  the  top  and  closing  quickly 
at  the  touch,  the  lowest  form  of  sentient  life,  but 
knowing  what  is  what.  This  youngster  takes  his 
second  lesson  in  natural  history  by  dropping  in  a 
mussel,  when  the  anemone  closes  over  it,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  thereafter  throws  out  an  empty  shell; 
but  when  the  young  rogue  dropped  in  a  stone,  it 
was  thrown  out  in  a  contemptuous  way,  as  if  the 
anemone  had  long  ago  understood  the  trick  and  was 
not  to  be  deceived  by  naughty  boys. 

The  star-fish  comes  in  with  the  drift,  as  if  he  were 
altogether  helpless ;  but,  dull  and  inert  as  he  seems, 
he  watches  tides  and  opportunities.  Like  the  whelk, 
he  loves  the  bivalve  molhisk,  but  does  not  bore  for 
it.  There  is  a  theory  that  he  holds  his  five  fingers 
affectionately  around  the  clam  or  oyster,  and  then, 
by  the  aid  of  a  sort  of  marine  chloroform,  secures 
an  opening,  when  in  goes  one  of  the  five  fingers, 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA.  193 

and  the  mollusk  is  forced  to  shell  out.  There  is  a 
beautiful  combination  of  persuasion  and  force.  The 
sedative  is  tried  first,  and  the  pressure  afterward. 
It  is  a  pity  that  some  such  process  could  not  be 
tried  on  that  class  of  human  mollusks  whose  shells 
have  closed  over  their  millions  with  an  unrelenting 
grip.  Some  day  their  empty  shells  may  be  cast  up 
on  the  other  shore.  It  might  be  better  for  them 
that  a  star-fish  should  insert  one  of  his  fingers  before 
the  drift  period  begins. 

In  the  chalk  bluff,  more  than  forty  feet  from  high- 
water  mark,  is  the  vertebrae  of  a  whale  distinctly 
outlined.  This  monarch  of  the  seas  selected  his 
tomb  with  some  reference  to  the  fitness  of  things. 
The  Egyptian  monarchs  built  for  themselves  granite 
tombs;  but  the  whale  lay  down  on  the  ooze,  and 
the  infusoria  of  five  thousand  years  or  more  built 
around  and  above  him.  He  was  grandly  inurned, 
and  lifted  up  out  of  the  sea  by  such  a  force  as  no 
living  or  dead  Pharaoh  could  command.  In  the 
matter  of  royal  sepulture,  it  is  certain  that  the  whale 
had  an  immense  advantage.  But  after  three  or 
four  thousand  years,  the  defunct  monarchs  of  sea 
and  land  are  mainly  valuable  for  bone-dust,  and  are 


194  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

rather  poor  fertilizers  at  best.  From  the  hill  one  may 
see  whales  gambol  in  the  Bay  of  Monterey,  in  the 
early  Spring  months.  What  a  great  laundry  estab 
lishment  these  fellows  might  set  up,  if  they  only 
knew  how  to  utilize  their  power !  At  present,  these 
columns  of  spray  blown  into  the  horizon  are  only 
picturesque.  There  is  a  grave  suspicion  that  the 
friend,  whose  Mongol  servant  blew  the  spray  from 
his  mouth  into  the  sponge  to  be  set  for  bread,  would 
have  much  preferred  that  the  whale  had  performed 
that  office.  Years  ago,  one  of  these  monsters  was 
seen  floundering  about  in  the  bay  all  day  long,  as 
though  in  great  distress.  The  following  night  he 
drifted  ashore,  dead.  The  great  hulk  had  no  mark 
of  the  sword-fish  or  the  whaleman's  lance.  The 
sailors  said  that  he  was  worried,  teased,  and  finally 
hunted  to  death,  by  a  fish  called  a  "  bummer." 
How  strikingly  human-like  was  the  experience  of 
the  dead  mammal ! 

There  was  a  strange  fascination  about  two  wrecked 
vessels,  whose  timber  heads  could  be  seen  above  the 
sand.  Sometimes,  in  a  storm,  they  would  get  adrift. 
So  weird  like  and  mysteriously  did  they  rise  and  fall 
on  the  surging  sea,  appearing  and  disappearing, 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA.  195 

thrusting  their  timbers  out  like  arms  imploring  help, 
that  one  might  fancy  they  were  the  spirits  of  these 
lost  yessels  coming  back  to  protest  against  this  broken 
rest.  How  strangely  they  accented  the  storm  !  When 
it  subsided  they  would  bring  up  at  the  old  place, 
and  the  sand  would  bury  them  again.  There  was 
an  odd  genius  in  the  town  who  claimed  these  wrecks 
by  pre-emption.  When  his  finances  were  low,  and 
creditors  pressed  for  small  bills,  he  made  his  payments 
conditioned,  as  to  time,  on  the  coming  of  the  next 
storm  which  would  unbury  the  wrecks.  Providence 
saved  him  a  deal  of  hard  shoveling,  by  raising  the 
wind  for  him.  Then  he  drew  out  copper  bolts 
enough  from  the  wreck  to  liquidate  his  bills,  but 
gathered  no  surplus.  Hath  not  many  a  mine  been 
exhausted  by  indiscreet  development?  As  long  as 
that  copper  lasted,  "  Bob  "  paid  his  debts  periodically. 
If  he  has  not  yet  drawn  his  last  copper  bolt,  he 
is  still  entitled  to  the  financial  confidence  of  this 
trading  and  huckstering  world. 

These  round  holes  in  the  hard  rocks  are  wrought 
deftly  by  the  Pholas,  a  little  bivalve,  which,  by  means 
of  its  rasping  shell  and  strong,  elastic  foot,  keeps  up 
the  attrition,  grinding  away  day  and  night  until  his 


196  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

excavation  is  perfect.  It  fits  him  on  all  sides,  and 
he  is  content  to  live  and  die  there.  How  much 
better  is  his  condition  than  that  of  round  men  who 
have  been  trying  all  their  lives  to  fit  themselves  into 
square  holes,  and  square  men  who  never  could 
adjust  themselves  to  round  holes.  The  Pholas  has 
found  his  place,  and  therefore  may  be  ahead  in  the 
race.  There  was  a  famous  theologian  of  the  last 
century,  who,  sitting  at  his  desk  year  after  year, 
wrestling  with  problems  which  neither  he  nor  any 
other  mortal  ever  understood,  ground  the  floor  of 
his  little  study,  by  the  attrition  of  his  feet,  until  it 
was  nearly  worn  through.  His  footprints  are  still 
preserved  as  sacred  relics.  Nor  ought  the  inquiry 
to  be  pressed  now  whether  the  hole  which  the  Pholas 
wrought  with  his  foot,  or  the  hole  which  the  theolo 
gian  ground  with  his  foot,  was  the  better  or  more  per 
manent  one.  If  the  question  is  at  all  pertinent,  it 
may  be  ripe  for  an  answer  a  thousand  years  hence. 
When  the  tide  is  out,  one  may  find  the  razor-fish, 
so  called  because  the  shell  resembles  the  handle  of 
a  razor.  If  laid  hold  of  suddenly,  the  chances  are 
that  before  he  can  be  drawn  out  he  will  slip  out  of 
his  shell,  leaving  that  empty  in  the  hand,  while  the 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA.          197 

"soul  and  essence"  of  him  has  gone  down  half  a 
fathom  into  the  sand.  Yet  he  is  not  more  slippery 
than  many  an  individual,  who,  when  pressed  to  do 
some  magnanimous  deed  in  behalf  of  the  community, 
slips  out  of  his  shell,  and,  losing  the  grip,  you  can 
no  more  find  the  soul  and  essence  of  him  than  you 
can  find  the  soul  of  this  razor-fish,  which  has  gone 
deep  into  the  muck  and  sand.  In  either  instance, 
the  empty  shell  is  only  the  sign  of  the  thing  wanted. 
If  it  were  not  for  this  eternal  scene-shifting, 
the  monotony  of  the  sea  might  be  oppressive- 
But  every  change  of  the  wind,  and  every  drifting 
cloud  across  the  sky,  gives  a  new  blending  of 
color  and  tone.  If  to-morrow  the  south  wind  shall 
blow,  or  a  gale  come  piping  down  from  the  north, 
the  face  of  the  deep  will  have  been  created  anew, 
as  much  so,  in  an  aesthetic  view,  as  if  it  had  been 
poured  out  for  the  first  time  on  the  surface  of 
the  globe.  Is  there  not  a  perpetual  series  of 
creations  on  both  sea  and  land?  The  waters  are 
taken  up  in  the  clouds,  and  poured  out  again. 
Mountains  are  disintegrated,  and  go  down  to  the 
valleys,  but  other  mountains  are  lifted  up  out  of 
the  sea  and  out  of  the  arid  plains.  Climbing  a 


198  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

hill,  more  than  four  hundred  feet  above  the  surface 
of  the  water,  and  five  miles  inland  from  the  present 
shore  line,  one  may  find  thousands  of  marine  shells, 
many  of  mollusks  not  yet  extinct  as  species,  and 
read  on  the  face  of  this  conglomerate,  as  in  open 
volume,  the  record  of  a  physical  creation,  whether 
by  the  subsidence  of  the  sea  or  the  elevation  of 
the  land,  as  fresh,  geologically,  as  if  all  this  had 
occurred  but  a  century  ago.  This  world  of  waters 
creates  no  sense  of  isolation.  Observe,  too,  that 
whoever  has  been  born  and  bred  by  the  shore  will 
evermore  look  out  on  the  sea  and  be  glad.  A  sail 
is  better  than  a  horse,  and  the  breaking  of  the 
waves  hath  more  majesty  and  a  diviner  music  than 
any  organ  touched  by  human  hands.  Mem.:  the 
man  who  has  gone  over  the  rocks,  and  is  filling 
his  pockets  with  mussels  in  a  furtive  sort  of  a  way, 
is  from  the  interior.  He  wants  salting.  He  is 
looking  out  drift  wood,  and  will  strike  a  match 
presently.  Let  him  fancy,  if  he  will,  that  his  feast 
is  fit  for  the  gods.  To-night  he  will  probably  dream 
that  one  of  these  wrecks,  covered  with  barnacles 
and  sea-weed,  has  rolled  over,  and  is  lying  athwart 
his  capacious  diaphragm. 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA.  199 

The  Patriarch  went  out  into  the  fields  at  eventide. 
Was  it  any  the  worse  for  him  that  his  meditations 
were  gilded  with  a  touch  of  romance?  What  if 
he  thought  less  of  the  lilies  of  the  field,  and  more 
of  the  veiled  lily  from  Nahor?  Was  not  that 
human?  So  we  go  down  to  the  seashore  as  the 
soft  twilight  comes  on  apace,  and  think  it  no  worse 
that  the  voices  of  lovers  blend  with  the  cadence 
of  waters.  If  there  is  no  higher  inspiration  for 
them,  let  Isaac  speak  to  Rebecca.  It  is  little  to 
them  that  there  is  a  blush  in  the  horizon,  and  that 
a  moment  ago  the  sea  was  opalescent,  and  the 
mountains  put  on  and  off  their  royal  vestments 
of  purple. 

This  homestead  by  the  sea  was  an  accident.  It 
was  the  result  of  a  bit  of  facetiousness,  that  had  a 
solemn  termination,  as  it  were.  Riding  past  the 
court-house  in  Santa  Cruz,  nineteen  years  ago,  when 
that  town  had  not  as  many  hundred  people,  the 
wag  of  a  sheriff  was  dividing  his  time  between  crying 
a  ranch  at  public  sale,  to  close  an  estate,  and  whittling 
a  stick.  No  bids  for  the  last  hour.  Would  the 
citizen  on  horseback  halt  a  minute  and  accommodate 
him  with  a  bid,  just  to  relieve  the  dullness  of  the 


200  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

occasion?  The  last  bid  was  raised  five  dollars. 
What  did  that  madcap  of  a  sheriff  do  but  slap  his 
hands  together  and  declare  that  the  estate  was  sold. 
There  have  been  earthquakes  which  were  incon 
veniently  sudden,  and  thunder-claps  from  a  clear 
sky;  but  such  an  investiture  of  real  property  had 
not  been  known  in  many  a  day.  The  sheriff 
shut  up  his  jack-knife;  the  bystanders  closed  theirs, 
and  they  all  went  round  the  corner,  as  they  said, 
to  consult  a  barometer — a  proceeding  which  that 
official  never  did  fully  explain.  When  one  has  been 
overtaken  by  a  surprise,  a  climax,  or  even  a  joke, 
which  has  at  the  bottom  of  it  such  a  flavor  of  real 
estate,  it  is  best  to  sleep  on  it  for  one  night,  and 
take  a  fresh  view  of  the  situation  on  the  following 
day.  Does  not  the  ideal  country  estate  in  some 
way  enter  into  the  sleeping  or  waking  dreams  of 
most  sanguine  men  ?  There  are  to  be  many  broad 
acres,  parks,  and  fountains,  orchards  drooping  with 
fruit ;  vineyards  creeping  up  the  hillsides ;  a  trout 
stream  in  which  "chubs"  greatly  abound;  a  capacious 
mansion,  with  hospitable  doors  swinging  open  as  if 
by  instinct  on  the  approach  of  friends ;  barns  filled 
with  fragrant  hay;  thoroughbred  stock,  from  the 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA.  201 

horse  down  to  the  dog  and  cat ;  Alderney  cows, 
coming  up  at  night  with  cream  in  their  horns,  mild- 
eyed  and  gentle,  with  breath  as  sweet  as  the  wild 
clover  they  had  eaten ;  gilt-edged  butter,  not  handed 
round  in  pats  as  large  as  a  shilling,  for  admiration 
but  set  forth  in  solid  cubes,  like  gold  which  had 
been  honestly  assayed  and  run  into  ingots ;  straw 
berries  perennial,  and  always  smothered  in  cream ; 
bellflowers  and  pippins,  ripening  in  the  Autumn  sun  ; 
scientific  farming,  not  for  profit,  but  just  to  demon 
strate  how  it  can  be  done;  long,  tranquil  days, 
restful  and  full  of  indescribable  peace,  when  bees 
go  droning  by,  and  the  perfume  of  the  orchard 
comes  in  at  the  open  windows.  That  is  pretty  nearly 
an  outline  of  your  dream,  with  some  minor  variation 
of  details  thrown  in ;  such,  for  instance,  as  a  great 
chamber  looking  toward  the  rising  sun,  where  the 
one  epic  poem  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  to  be 
written.  Are  there  some  twinges  of  pain  about  the 
heart  that  this  dream  has  never  been  quite  realized  ? 
Consider  for  a  moment  that  heaven,  so  far  as  it 
relates  to  this  world,  is  for  the  most  part  an  ideal 
conception.  It  is  not  what  one  has  reduced  to 
possession,  but  what  he  hopes  to  have.  Now,  one 


202  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

can  put  a  great  deal  of  heaven  into  the  ideal  country 
home,  and  not  realize  largely  on  the  investment. 
If  the  strawberries  cost  a  dollar  apiece,  and  the 
favorite  horse  has  a  trick  of  putting  his  heels  up 
toward  the  stars,  the  chickens  stagger  about  with 
the  gapes,  and  the  phylloxera  browns  the  vineyard 
as  if  a  subterranean  fire  had  been  burning  at  the 
roots,  these  touches  of  realism  may  chasten  the 
expectations  somewhat,  and  at  the  same  time  serve 
to  plant  the  amateur  farmer  more  firmly  on  his  feet. 
It  is  a  pity  that  the  world  could  not  be  enriched 
by  the  experience  of  the  gilt-edged  farmer  from  the 
city.  What  is  most  wanted  is  a  book  of  failures — 
an  honest  filling  in  of  the  blanks  between  the  ideal 
and  real  country  life. 

A  survey  of  the  new  purchase  disclosed  a  number 
of  particulars ;  and,  among  others,  that  a  dead 
man's  pre-emption  claim,  when  sold  under  the  form 
of  law,  passes  a  rather  shadowy  title  to  the  buyer. 
It  was  needful  to  become  a  constructive  pre-emptor, 
and  to  exhort  a  number  of  impenitent  squatters 
to  early  penitence  and  reformation.  The  Saxon's 
hunger  for  land  is  generally  matched  by  his  appetite 
for  land  stealing.  If  two  parcels  of  land  of  equal 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA.  203 

area  and  value  be  shown  him,  one  already  claimed 
and  the  other  open  to  settlement,  the  chances  are 
that  this  descendant  of  ancient  land-robbers  would 
much  prefer  to  pounce  on  the  land  already  occupied, 
and  fight  it  out.  If  he  is  not  reconstructed  in  his 
inmost  soul,  he  will  always  be  wanting  his  neighbor's 
vineyard.  The  new  purchase  met  all  aesthetic 
requirements.  It  was  on  the  edge  of  the  town, 
and  hardly  more  than  a  mile  from  the  sea.  It 
had  a  grove  in  the  foreground,  a  trout  stream  on 
either  side,  with  a  fringe  of  tall  redwoods,  a  backing 
of  mountains,  and  a  water  view  comprising  the 
whole  of  Monterey  Bay,  and  as  much  of  the 
ocean  as  the  eye  could  reduce  to  constructive 
possession.  Not  a  fence  to  mark  a  boundary ;  but 
the  two-room  shanty,  with  its  great  stone  chimney 
on  the  outside,  loomed  up  like  a  palace.  There 
was  a  fire-place  which  yawned  like  an  immense 
cave.  An  old  rifle-barrel,  planted  in  the  chimney, 
served  well  enough  as  a  crane.  The  opening  at 
the  top  was  liberally  adjusted  for  astronomical 
observations,  but  had  been  slightly  abridged  by 
the  nest  of  a  pair  of  gray  wood  squirrels,  which 
kept  up  a  perpetual  racing  on  the  dry  roof  at  night. 


204  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

It  is  not  probable  that  the  primitive  man  had 
any  such  house  to  await  his  coming;  and  having 
his  constitution  adjusted  to  a  tropical  climate  at 
the  outset,  he  had  little  use  for  a  stone  fire-place 
where  the  back-log  lasted  a  week.  It  would  furnish 
a  curious  commentary  on  the  evolution  of  dwellings 
if  one  could  establish  the  fact  that  the  first  house 
was  built  of  adobes,  like  those  which  one  now  sees 
along  the  bluff  of  the  Branciforte,  and  which  have 
more  than  one  quality  of  the  perfect  country  house. 
A  breastwork  of  earth  might  have  been  raised 
first,  to  break  off  tempests;  afterward,  it  would 
have  four  sides,  then  perhaps  a  thatch  of  palm 
leaves — and  the  primitive  adobe  dwelling  stood  in 
its  glory.  In  such  a  habitation  the  sun  could  not 
smite  by  day,  and  only  the  fleas  could  smite 
powerfully  at  night.  If  any  learned  archaeologist 
finds  fault  with  this  theory,  let  him  make  a  better 
one  out  of  adobes  if  he  can. 

It  was  an  odd  circumstance  that  the  grove  had 
been  the  chosen  place  for  many  a  camp  meeting, 
the  board  buildings  still  remaining;  while  on  the 
opposite  side  an  eccentric  African  had  occupied  for 
many  years  a  hut,  and  led  a  sort  of  mystic  life. 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA.  205 

He  was  skillful  in  compounding  simples,  the  potency 
of  which  was  greatly  increased  by  his  incantations. 
It  was  even  said  that  he  had  the  gift  of  hoo-dooing, 
and  always  kept  the  roughs  at  bay  by  threatening 
to  fix  his  eye  on  them.  There  was  a  trace  of 
orthodoxy  in  his  methods — since,  if  the  wicked 
cannot  be  won  by  love,  they  can  sometimes  be 
scared  into  decency  by  sending  the  devil  after 
them.  Here  were  signs  of  grace  on  one  side,  and 
diabolism  on  the  other.  But  neither  effected  much 
in  "Squabble  Hollow,"  two  miles  beyond.  It  is 
a  pity  that  the  African  had  not  done  a  little 
hoo-dooing  up  there  among  the  pioneers,  so  that 
the  reign  of  peace  might  have  set  in  at  an  earlier 
day.  It  is  quiet  enough  now,  because  Time,  with 
his  scythe,  has  cut  a  clean  swath  there. 

If  one  has  planted  his  own  orchard,  he  will  eat 
the  fruit  with  greater  satisfaction.  He  will  have 
an  affection  for  the  trees  which  he  once  carried 
under  his  arm,  and  will  trim  them  tenderly  in  the 
spring.  Whoever  ate  the  cherries  which  he  bought 
in  the  market  with  such  secret  satisfaction  as  those 
which  he  plucked  from  his  own  trees  in  the  early 
morning?  If  your  neighbor  invites  you  to  his 


206  THE   HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

cherry  orchard,  he  honors  you  above  kings.  It  is 
doubtful  if  royalty  ever  poised  itself  on  a  rickety 
chair,  or  reached  for  cherries  so  deftly  as  that 
school  girl,  who  read  her  graduating  essay,  with 
pendent  blue  ribbons,  last  month.  She  is  not 
greatly  changed  now,  except  that  her  mouth  has 
increased  about  a  hundred  per  cent.  Every  tree 
which  one  sets  with  his  own  hands  is  better  than 
those  which  the  hireling  and  stranger  have  set.  He 
establishes  secret  relations  with  it,  communes  with 
it,  eats  of  the  fruit  as  if  the  tree  itself  rejoiced 
in  bestowing  such  a  benediction.  When  the  apples 
fall  to  the  ground,  in  the  still  autumn  day,  it  is 
as  if  they  dropped  from  the  opening  heavens. 
Every  one  is  the  symbol  of  wisdom,  and  hath,  in 
its  malic  acid,  a  subtile  essence,  which  carries 
health  to  the  morbid  liver.  And  no  individual  is 
ever  wise  when  that  organ  is  in  trouble,  or,  at 
least,  he  has  an  unhappy  way  of  expressing  his 
wisdom.  From  this  sanitary  point  of  view,  it  will 
accord  with  a  healthy  conscience  if  a  little  cider 
mill  is  set  up  under  the  wide-branching  oak 
hard  by.  If  you  have  any  scruples,  you  need  not 
taste  of  the  cider,  but  you  can  smell  of  the  pomace, 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA.  207 

and  note  how  the  bees  and  yellow-jackets  are  drawn 
to  it  for  honey.  The  bees  go  in  a  straight  line 
to  a  knot-hole  in  the  dead  top  of  a  redwood  tree. 
The  taking  up  of  a  wild  swarm,  which  had  stored 
honey  in  another  tree,  was  not  a  happy  experiment. 
When  the  tree  came  down,  there  was  a  black, 
boiling  mass  of  enraged  bees.  No  lack  of  honey. 
But  if  one  wishes  to  know  what  is  meant  by  the 
"iron  entering  into  the  soul,"  let  a  dozen  bees  go 
under  his  necktie,  and  prod  him  along  his  back — 
the  last  one,  by  way  of  a  tiger,  prodding  the  tip 
of  his  nose,  because  at  that  very  instant  one  must 
sneeze  or  die.  How  can  one  tell  what  is  sweet 
except  there  be  some  bitterness  in  contrast?  It 
was  evident  that  old  dog  "Samson,"  who  dropped 
his  tail  and  yelled  when  the  bees  lit  on  him,  was 
not  given  to  much  philosophical  reflection ;  but  the 
speed  of  that  disconsolate  cur  was  mightily  helped 
on  his  way  back  to  the  kennel.  If  an  invitation 
were  now  extended  to  him  to  take  up  another  hive, 
he  would  do  nothing  more  than  wave  his  tail  and 
send  regrets. 

That  platform  in  the  grove  is  maintained  for  the 
benefit  of  free  speech,   with   reasonable   limitations. 


208  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

Clerical  and  political  orators  have  had  their  day 
there.  In  short,  it  is  the  platform  of  all  nations, 
newly  consecrated  every  summer  by  the  rhythmic 
feet  and  gleesome  voices  of  childhood.  Then,  if 
ever,  the  oak  and  madrono  spread  their  branches 
of  perpetual  green  over  such  more  tenderly,  as 
symbols  of  the  immortal  freshness  of  youth.  Is 
not  this  succession  of  life  from  chaos  eternal,  and 
the  race  itself  only  in  its  infancy  ?  Neither  the 
woodman's  axe  nor  the  fire  could  take  the  vitality 
out  of  that  redwood  stump,  for  the  saplings  have 
sprung  out  of  its  clefts,  and  the  old  roots  are 
sending  these  new  spires  up  toward  the  heavens. 
As  little  does  the  destruction  of  a  nation  affect 
the  genesis  of  the  race,  or  its  everlasting  succession- 
The  orchard  is  the  symbol  of  peace,  abundance, 
the  mellowness  of  life.  It  is  the  sign  of  a  gentle 
civilization  grafted  on  to  the  wildness  of  nature. 
The  wild  blackberry  and  strawberry,  which  grow 
along  the  fences  and  hedgerows,  have  an  aboriginal 
flavor.  When  they  are  domesticated  they  are  a 
hundredfold  better.  The  wild  trees  of  the  forest 
take  to  themselves  new  qualities  when  set  in  the 
open  grounds.  The  ship  built  of  "pasture  oak" 


THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA.         209 

is  a  better  craft,  because  the  toughness  of  fiber  of 
such  trees  was  gained  in  the  open  field,  where 
they  had  given  shelter  to  ruminating  cows.  Was 
not  the  yew  tree,  which  grew  about  the  ancestral 
homes  generations  ago,  chosen  for  the  cross-bow 
because  of  its  toughness  and  elasticity  ?  This  solitary 
ash  by  the  fence  is  more  lithe  and  graceful  for  its 
introduction  to  domestic  life;  and  this  wide-branch 
ing  oak  before  the  door,  casting  now  its  shadows 
aslant,  made  handsome  obeisance  to  the  earthquake, 
sweeping  the.  ground  with  its  lateral  branches.  Not 
a  fracture  of  one  of  its  elastic  limbs;  but  that 
ancient  stone  chimney  rumbled  fearfully,  and  stood 
apart  in  moody  isolation.  When  the  dog  abandons 
the  civilized  community  and  hears  no  human  speech, 
he  loses  his  bark.  The  lowest  type  of  humanity 
has  only  a  few  guttural  sounds.  The  civilized  master 
follows  the*  condition  of  his  dog — that  is,  if  he  be 
cast  on  some  solitary  island,  he  gradually  loses  his 
speech.  Dog  and  man  have  finally  gone  back  to 
dumb  nature.  Why  is  the  fruit  of  the  ancient  pear 
tree,  standing  by  some  deserted  homestead  of  ante- 
revolutionary  days,  more  acrid  and  pungent  than 
it  was  a  hundred  years  ago  ?  It  had  lost  association 


210  THE  HOMESTEAD  BY  THE  SEA. 

with  human  kind.  If  one  could  grasp  the  sweeter 
subtleties  of  Nature,  he  might  find  a  gracious 
accord,  a  point  of  sympathetic  contact,  where  the 
mellowness  of  the  individual,  the  rich  and  generous 
juices  of  his  nature,  give  a  finer  quality  to  the 
fruits  of  the  trees  which  he  has  planted.  Something 
may  come  back  to  him,  also,  in  the  aroma  of  the 
orchard,  helping  him  by  its  fragrance  to  a  gentler 
and  more  thoughtful  life. 


SUBURBAN     ETCHINGS. 


IT  accords  with  trie  folk-lore,  or  traditions  of  the 
"Hill,"  that  one  must  not  offer  violence  to  a  black 
cat.  Now  it  happened  that  in  the  season  of  spring 
chickens — in  the  very  callow  time  of  their  existence — 
a  vagrant  cat  installed  himself  in  the  garden. 
Charcoal  was  grey  in  contrast  with  the  depth  of  his 
blackness;  and  his  yellow  eyes  were  flanked  by  jowls 
indicating  that  he  fared  sumptuously.  If  a  cat  of 
this  hue  is  a  symbol  of  evil,  why  not  induce  him  to 
move  on  at  once  ?  "  Bridget "  was  questioned  for  a 
satisfactory  answer.  "  Because  you  musn't.  It  is 
bad  luck  to  harm  a  black  cat."  And  so  this  super 
stition  from  the  heart  of  the  African  continent  was 
respected  for  a  time.  There  might  be  some  occult 
influence  by  which  the  cat  propogated  the  super- 
stitition ;  creating  it  and  living,  as  it  were,  in  its  very 
atmosphere.  Hoodooing  possibly  is  not  confined  to 
Africans.  It  has  some  relation  to  blackness,  midnight, 
wierd  and  mysterious  eyes.  This  prowling  feline  may 


214  SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS. 

have  in  him  the  spirit  of  mischief.  A  symbol  of  evil 
may  sometimes  be  the  thing  itself.  It  is  a  strange 
custom  to  mourn  for  lost  friends  by  wearing  black. 
What  more  natural  interpretation  than  that  the 
wearer  also  is  dead  ?  Whereas  the  "heathen"  have 
hit  upon  a  better  symbol,  wearing  white  for  the 
loss  of  friends,  signifying  that  they  have  entered  into 
light,  that  the  world  itself  is  all  luminous  for  the 
living. 

Now  that  cat,  the  spirit  and  essence  of  darkness, 
the  forerunner  of  diabolism,  was  true  to  the  symbol. 
What  did  he  do  but  leap  over  a  high  fence  every 
morning  and  take  from  the  inclosure  the  tenderest  of 
spring  chickens.  Then  an  hour  afterward  he  would  go 
down  the  garden  walk  for  a  greeting,  as  if  he  were  not 
a  knave  and  a  hypocrite,  arching  his  back  and  curving 
his  tail  beautifully,  rubbing  his  sleek  coat  against  one 
and  looking  up  in  the  face  as  much  as  to  say,  "  The 
only  honest  trades  in  the  world  are  yours  and  mine." 
It  is  true  that  the  business  economy  of  the  world  is 
mainly  a  system  of  reprisals.  But  there  ought  to  be 
a  spiritual  economy  which  should  teach  something 
better.  It  is  evident  that  this  cat  must  be  converted 
with  other  than  spiritual  weapons.  In  a  millenial 


SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS.  215 

sense  shotguns,  no  doubt,  may  become  "  organ  pipes 
of  peace,"  and  even  now  they  may  be  used  to 
project  a  sermon  to  a  considerable  distance.  One 
by  one  that  brood  of  chickens  disappeared,  and 
another  was  just  coming  off.  A  neighbor  was  con 
sulted  as  to  the  best  manner  of  getting  around  the 
superstition  that  no  harm  must  be  done  to  a  black 
cat.  The  case  was  plain  enough.  He  had  a  beautiful 
breech-loading  shotgun,  costing,  he  suggested,  a 
hundred  and  twenty  dollars.  All  that  was  necessary 
to  be  done  in  the  premises  was  to  exhort  that 
marauder  with  that  gun.  He  would  show  us  how 
to  use  it.  Then  followed  a  drill  in  its  use.  The 
cartridges  went  in  at  the  breech,  an  eye  was  to  be 
squinted  along  the  barrel — and  then  came  the  crisis. 
What  a  beautiful  implement !  And  how  wonderful 
the  contrast  with  the  old  Queen's  arm,  the  relic 
of  revolutionary  days  stored  in  the  garret,  with  its 
flint  lock,  priming  wire  and  muzzle,  into  which  went 
five  fingers  of  powder  and  shot,  and  one  of  wads! 
That  gun,  the  use  of  which  was  always  interdicted  to 
small  boys,  had  been  let  down  from  the  garret  window 
many  a  time  by  a  toe-string  manufactured  for  the 
occasion,  and  the]  first  hint  which  maternal  govern- 


216  SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS. 

ment  got  of  that  sleight  of  hand  was  a  report  in  the 
nearest  woods,  which  all  the  heavens  echoed  to 
the  old  homestead.  That  honest  revolutionary  piece 
would  not  lie.  It  spoke  the  truth  even  if  we  had 
to  suffer  the  consequences.  The  draft  made  on  a 
clump  of  hazel  bushes  near  by,  was  the  serious  part 
of  the  business.  But  it  abides  in  the  memory  that 
no  red  squirrel  running  on  a  ziz-zag  fence  was  wholly 
safe  when  that  Queen's  arm  was  pointed  at  him. 

The  breech-loader  was  taken  down  and  stored  in 
the  library  for  an  aggravated  occasion.  It  came  in  a 
few  days.  The  man  of  all  work  came  bowling  up  the 
walk  red  and  wrathful.  "  That  old  son  of  perdition 
has  got  another  chicken!"  Now  then,  his  time  had 
come.  He  shall  be  swept  with  the  besom  of  destruc 
tion.  Superstitions  go  this  day  for  nothing.  A 
hundred  and  twenty  dollar  shotgun,  silver  mounted, 
and  a  patent  cartridge  !  "  Rest  it  across  my  back, 
'Squire,  and  take  good  aim.  Aim  for  his  shoulder, 
and  don't  kill  the  chicken  in  his  mouth. " — "  Did  you 
fetch  the  cat?"  Well,  not  exactly.  The  old  super 
stition  that  day  had  a  powerful  effect.  That  cat 
dropped  the  chicken,  though,  and  ran  toward  the 
gunner  as  if  to  salute  him,  and  then  leaped  over  a 


SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS.  217 

ten-feet  fence  and  disappeared.  That  was  not  all. 
There  were  four  chickens  feeding  in  the  grass  beyond, 
every  one  of  which  was  laid  out  cold,  and  a  fifth 
was  struck  in  the  head  and  had  the  blind  staggers 
so  that  it  was  counted  in  with  the  dead.  There  had 
been  a  little  variance  in  the  "  besom  of  destruction  " 
which  operated  in  favor  of  that  mysterious  cat. 
Then  there  was  the  salutation  of  Bridget :  "  I)idn't 
I  tell  you  that  it  is  bad  luck  to  kill  a  black  cat!" 
"  Well,  I  haven't  killed  him  by  a  long  way.  But 
you  might  go  down  in  the  back  lot  and  gather  up 
an  apron  full  of  spring  chickens."  That  gun  was 
returned  with  thanks.  It  was  an  elegant  piece.  ,  But, 
somehow,  it  didn't  work  like  the  Queen's  arm.  The 
next  day  that  cat  returned  as  if  nothing  had  happened, 
and  took  the  regular  toll  -of  a  chicken  a  day.  For 
a  whole  year  more  these  depredations  went  on  at 
intervals,  regulated  by  the  supply  of  young  chickens, 
Here  was  enterprise.  A  hundred-dollar  chicken 
yard,  constructed  and  arranged  on  "  scientific 
principles,"  was  just  adequate  for  the  supply  of 
one  black  cat,  on  which  no  impression  could  be 
made  with  a  breech-loader,  while  chickens  were 
bought  every  week  in  the  market  to  meet  the  home 


218  SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS. 

demand  !  In  this  extremity  a  new  plan  was  evolved- 
A  cash  premium— a  new  dollar  from  the  mint — shall 
go  for  the  destruction  of  this  particular  cat  and  all 
successors.  Robert,  the  utility  man,  soon  claimed 
the  dollar.  He  had  exhorted  the  sleek  old  hypocrite 
with  a  hoe-handle,  and  brought  him  to  sudden 
repentance. 

"  It  is  bad  luck  to  kill  a  black  cat,"  said  Bridget 
the  next  morning;  "and  you  didn't  kill  him,  neither." 
Well,  I  paid  Robert  a  premium  of  a  dollar,  and  he 
took  him  off.  "Hang  all  superstitions." 

"  But  the  black  cat  is  down  in  the  garden  now." 
There  was  that  thieving  rascal,  or  a  duplicate,  at 
the  old  business.  Robert  offered  to  show  the  original 
underground.  The  premium  business  was  continued, 
and  went  into  the  monthly  statement.  No  sooner 
was  one  taken  off  than  another  appeared,  provided 
always  that  it  was  not  the  original  vagabond.  The 
same  predatory  habits,  the  same  midnight  and  dia 
bolical  expression,  the  same  decimation  in  the 
chicken  yard.  What  did  it  all  mean  ?  There  was 
some  occult  diabolism  that  could  not  be  explained. 
"  Didn't  I  tell  you,"  says  Bridget,  with  an  air  of 
triumph,  "that  you  can't  kill  a  black  cat." 


SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS  219 

No,  I  can't,  with  a  breech-loader.  But  Robert  is 
drawing  a  regular  premium.  The  black  cat  premium 
fund  was  exhausted.  Now,  state  your  account,  my 
boy.  "  Well,  I  have  killed  five,  upon  honor,  and  have 
my  eye  upon  another  one."  There  was  a  suspicion 
that  the  original  was  still  there.  But  the  superstition 
vanished  in  the  clear  light  of  day  when  it  was  shown 
that  number  six  had  a  little  fleck  of  white  between 
the  four  legs.  But  the  depredations  still  go  on,  and 
you  cannot  convince  the  honest  old  house-servant 
that  a  black  cat  has  ever  been  killed — and  looking 
out  into  the  garden  just  now,  as  that  sleek  black 
rascal  lies  in  the  grass,  with  a  waving  motion  of  his 
tail  and  his  yellow  eye  fixed  upon  a  callow  brood,  it  is 
clearer  than  ever  before  that  the  succession  of  black 
cats  is  eternal.  They  do  not  come  in  single  file,  but 
sun  themselves  on  the  fences  by  the  half  dozen,  run 
over  the  green-house,  breaking  panes  of  glass,  climb 
up  on  the  outside  to  the  gable  window  of  the  barn, 
flit  across  the  garden  walks  at  twilight,  conceal 
themselves  under  the  low  shrubbery,  as  if  defying 
all  efforts  at  dislodgement.  Then  there  is  the  com 
ment  of  Patrick,  our  neighbor's  utility  man  :  "  They 
know  the  char-#rter  you've  made  with  that  gun." 


220  SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS. 

Nor  was  it  a  mitigating  circumstance  that  a  sympa 
thizing  friend  proposed  to  regulate  the  succession  of 
cats  by  sending  over  a  small  half-grown  terrier.  If 
well  brought  up,  he  would  keep  the  peace  in  the 
interest  of  spring  chickens.  He  did  occasionally  run 
the  black  vagrants  to  the  trees  handsomely.  But  as 
an  incidental  diversion,  he  would  lay  out  half  a  dozen 
chickens  on  any  fine  morning.  Where  was  the  gain  ? 
Cats  could  be  exhorted  with  a  shotgun,  at  least  there 
was  one  experiment  of  that  kind.  But  when 
"Towser"  was  exhorted  with  a  switch,  a  wail  went 
up  from  the  Hill.  It  was  as  if  the  spirits  of  all 
the  dogs  in  Christendom  had  united  to  pierce  the 
heavens.  So  great  a  noise  for  so  small  a  catastrophe ! 
But  this  elementary  education  cannot  be  interrupted 
on  account  of  noises.  There  is  a  Hindoo  proverb 
that  you  cannot  get  the  crook  out  of  a  dog's  tail  by 
mollifying  appliances.  But  what  was  needed  in  that 
particular  case  was  to  get  the  crook  out  of  his 
intellect.  It  ought  to  have  been  settled  long  ago,  as 
a  principal  of  moral  and  mental  philosophy,  that  you 
cannot  beat  honesty  and  virtue  into  men  or  dogs. 
And  so  this  young  canine  rascal  will  come  back  to 
do  to-morrow  what  he  has  done  to-day  Does  the 


SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS.  221 

boy  rob  bird's  nests  or  plum  trees  any  the  less  because 
he  gets  a  sprouting  now  and  then  ?  He  has  in  his 
moral  system  a  thousand  years  of  inherited  aptitude 
for  such  predatory  excursions. 

The  moulting  season  having  come,  the  "chicken 
lot "  looks  as  if  several  feather  beds  had  been 
emptied  there.  There  is  less  crowing  and  apparently 
more  time  given  to  meditation  and  introspection. 
The  old  rooster  and  his  harem  are  now  in  undress, 
and  a  hint  has  been  given  that  domestic  eggs  will 
be  scarce  for  the  next  month.  A  young  chick  that 
learned  to  crow  hardly  more  than  a  month  ago,  and 
eats  from  the  hand  with  fine  audacity,  has  just 
begun  to  balance  his  accounts.  He  is  in  full  dress — 
his  first  suit,  as  it  were — and  is  not  subject  to  the 
moulting  process  at  present.  But  having  been  under 
the  tyranny  of  the  patriarch  who  has  now  lost  his 
tail,  the  younger  one  calls  him  to  account  daily. 
There  is  a  hint  of  retributive  justice  here.  All 
tyrants  ought  to  have  some  part  of  their  accounts 
settled  in  this  world.  By  way  of  example,  it  might 
be  better  if  the  settlements  were  very  complete. 
After  all,  there  are  very  few  tyrants  who  manage  to 
get  out  of  the  -world  without  a  partial  accounting 


222  SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS. 

with  humanity.  Now  and  then,  it  is  measure  for 
measure,  the  tyrant  having  his  heaped  up  a  little  by 
way  of  emphasis.  That  last  reflection  is  made 
clearer  by  the  way  that  young  rooster,  in  his  juvenile 
dress,  persists  in  settling  his  grievances.  He  knows 
nothing  of  the  quality  of  magnanimity,  which  suggests 
that  when  an  adversary  has  had  a  sound  drubbing 
he  should  be  let  off  with  a  mild  regret  that  any  such 
chastening  had  been  necessary.  There  is  little 
probability  that  the  quality  of  mercy  will  be  strained 
at  present.  Although,  when  a  tramp  called  at  the 
kitchen  door,  unkempt,  belated  and  besotted,  the 
compassionate  Bridget  set  him  out  a  generous  break 
fast.  But  when  he  complained  that  the  coffee  was 
not  hot,  the  quality  of  mercy  was  strained  which 
withheld  the  firing  of  the  poker  and  coal  scuttle  at 
his  head.  The  asceticism  of  the  modern  tramp,  and 
the  delicacy  and  exacting  nature  of  his  tastes,  con 
stitute  the  latest  problem  in  sociology.  It  is  strange, 
too,  that  his  moulting  season  should  last  the  year 
round.  His  laying  off  season  never  ends.  His  gains 
are  in  inverse  proportion  to  his  industry.  It  might 
be  well  to  inquire  whether  there  is  not  a  secret  profit 
in  cultivating  incapacity  for  work.  This  Christian 


SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS.  223 

Bedouin  gets  all  he  needs  without  effort.  But  daily 
I  see  a  man  who  has  acquired  ten  millions,  and 
wants  more.  I  know  not  which  is  the  better  off. 
The  one  appears  to  be  going  forward  to  an  eternity 
of  wants.  Suppose  this  capacity  for  wanting  things 
to  increase  in  geometrical  ratio? — it  may  be  necessary 
to  mortgage  the  universe  for  his  convenience.  The 
other  is  going  back  on  the  track,  lightening  the  dead 
weight  as  he  goes,  shedding  his  superfluous  clothes 
by  the  wayside,  getting  down  to  the  level  of  a 
ruminating  animal,  rejoicing  in  the  fragrance  of  hay 
stacks  at  night  and  the  freedom  of  hospitable  kitchens 
by  day.  If  there  is  nothing  better  than  to  delve  for 
clothes  and  wooden  palaces,  it  were  as  well  that  there 
should  be  more  moulting.  Who  knows  but  the  tramp 
reposing  in  the  sun,  his  blood  enriched  thereby,  his 
person  made  a  little  more  fragrant  by  the  redolence 
of  the  hay  stack,  may  not  gain  a  fresh  stock  of 
vitality  quite  needful  for  this  languishing  world  ?  The 
profoundest  philosopher  of  modern  times  surprised 
the  world  with  a  treatise  devoted  mainly  to  clothes.  It 
is  not  given  to  know  the  day  on  which  the  profounder 
philosopher  will  come  and  surprise  the  world  by 
showing  the  absurdity  of  clothes  worn  in  conformity 


224  SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS. 

to  any  conventional  requirements.  Society  is  forever 
moulting,  putting  off  and  on,  and  is  not  happy.  But 
the  Patagonian  covers  his  epidermis  with  mud  to 
protect  him  from  cold,  and  is  happy,  at  least  there  is 
no  evidence  to  the  contrary.  After  all,  there  was  a 
savor  of  health  in  the  cynicism  which  inspired  the 
sturdy  old  Greek  to  live  in  his  tub  when  at  home, 
and  to  hunt  for  an  honest  man  with  a  lantern  in  the 
open  day.  It  is  nowhere  stated  that  he  found  him. 

There  is  an  ancient  Spanish  custom  of  planting  the 
seed  of  fruit  which  has  been  eaten.  It  is  a  way  of 
pronouncing  a  benediction  for  the  good  received — 
not  in  empty  words,  but  by  a  thoughtful  and  benefi 
cent  act.  One  has  eaten  of  the  fruit  that  another 
has  planted,  and  he  is  glad  ;  he  will  also  plant  that 
another  may  eat.  Were  that ( custom  perpetuated  the 
world  over,  evermore  there  would  be  fruit  by  the 
wayside.  The  highways  and  byways  would  not  be 
cursed  with  barrenness  and  dust,  but  fringed  with 
the  mulberry  and  apple,  with  silent  salutations  for 
every  weary  traveler  who  would  put  forth  his  hand 
and  eat.  What  matters  it  that  the  tree  planted  to-day 
shall  never  overarch  and  protect  you  from  the  smiting 
sun  p shall  never  drop  its  golden  fruit  by  your  side? 


SUBURBAN  grOfffNQti.  225 

Shall  we  not  read  by  the  light  of  eternal  day  that 
every  tree  thus  planted  has  brought  its  benediction 
to  the  world?  Is  it  little  that  others  had  planted 
for  us,  that  we  should  forget  to  plant  again?  The 
patriarch  entertained  an  angel  unaware.  How  many 
angels  might  be  entertained  by  one  goodly  orchard  ? 
Or,  at  least,  such  as  by  grace  of  speech,  of  mind, 
and  manner,  have  already  received  the  divine  stamp. 
The  heavens  have  no  message  for  the  destroyer ;  but 
they  have  one  of  peace  for  those  who  plant  and  build 
wisely  on  the  earth. 

It  is  a  notable  fact  that  all  the  deciduous  trees,  as 
well  as  all  the  rose  bushes  which  are  within  the  range 
of  suburban  observation,  have  a  dormant  season  about 
mid-summer.  Neither  the  sun,  the  south  wind,  nor 
water  at  the  roots,  can  wholly  prevent  this  intervening 
period  of  rest.  In  their  own  time  and  way  they 
awake,  as  it  were,  to  newness  of  life.  In  this  dor 
mant  season  they  are  storing  energy  for  a  new 
development.  It  is  drawn  from  the  sun,  the  atmos 
phere,  and  the  nursing  earth.  When  they  have 
accumulated  fresh  stores  there  is  a  new  wealth  of 
blossom  and  foliage.  Something  analogous  to  this 
divine  order  reaches  over  from  matter  to  mind. 


226  SUBURBAN  ETCHINGS. 

There  are  dormant  seasons — periods  of  infertility — 
when  the  chemistry  of  heaven  and  earth  is  needed 
to  overcome  this  barrenness.  The  artist  dreams  and 
touches  not  the  fresh  canvas  on  his  easel.  The  poet 
wanders  aimlessly  in  wider  pastures,  content  to  see 
the  bees  come  and  go,  and  the  lupins  and  wild 
poppies  nod  to  each  other  on  the  hillside.  It  is  the 
ruminant  season,  when  it  is  needful  that  one  should 
digest  what  has  been  stored  up  within.  Doth  not  the 
land  lying  in  summer  fallow  gain  new  fertility  ?  The 
unclothed  land  going  so  near  to  barrenness  shall 
surely  be  clothed  upon  in  the  coming  spring-time.  It 
is  well  now  if  one  may  lie  down  and  dream  that 
the  heavens  were  studded  for  him  alone  ;  and  that 
the  west  wind  of  autumn,  bearing  the  perfume  of  a 
hundred  orchards,  comes  to  him  from  a  land  of 
eternal  fruitage.  Even  now  the  young  leaves  are 
starting  on  the  rose  bushes  ;  the  period  of  second 
growth  has  already  begun.  The  pear  begins  to  blush 
under  the  rays  of  a  September  sun  ;  and  a  strange 
lily  among  the  ineffable  white  of  the  callas,  has  gone 
all  aflame,  as  if  sainthood  and  bleeding  martyrdom 
were  never  far  apart. 


LITERATURE    AND   ART.* 


IF  one  may  find  by  the  way-side  in  early  spring 
time  so  much  as  a  harebell  or  dandelion,  a  springing 
blade  of  grass  or  an  unfolding  bud,  as  much  real 
satisfaction  may  be  drawn  from  these  scant  treasures 
as  from  the  more  abounding  fullness  of  summer, 
or  the  mellow  ripeness  of  autumn.  In  all  that 
relates  to  education,  literature  and  art,  it  is  early 
springtime  here.  What  would  you  have  more  than 
some  wayside  evidences  of  the  serene  summer  yet 
to  follow,  and  an  intellectual  fruitage,  of  which  the 
gold  and  purple  of  the  vintage  are  but  the  faintest 
symbols  ?  What  is  a  quarter  of  a  century  in  the 
life  of  a  commonwealth,  to  the  rounded  centuries 
which  have  matured  the  great  universities  of  Europe, 
or  even  the  two  centuries  which  have  enriched 
Harvard  and  Yale  ?  The  canvas  tents  of  '49, 

*  Delivered  on   "Assembly   Day,"   at  the  University  of   California. 


230  LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

pitched  on  the  sandy  slopes  of  the  peninsula* 
promised  no  great  city,  no  perfected  system  of 
common  schools,  no  academies  and  seminaries,  and 
no  university  planted  at  Berkeley,  in  sight  from  a 
city  of  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  inhabitants. 
The  dissolving  gravel  beds  of  a  placer  mine  and 
the  arid  plains,  were  neither  symbols  of  permanence 
nor  of  bread.  What  could  you  expect  in  this 
stress  of  humanity,  even  though  the  agglomerated 
community  were  not  lacking  in  some  of  the  best 
and  bravest  of  all  lands  ? 

There  can  be  no  beginning  of  a  commonwealth 
until  a  Divine  Providence  begins  to  set  the  solitary 
in  families.  Homes,  children,  the  economies  of 
domestic  life,  the  commonwealth  of  husband  and 
wife,  the  law  of  the  household,  and  that  human 
providence  which  grows  tender  and  thoughtful  with 
each  young  and  dependent  life — these  are  precedent 
conditions  of  the  future  state. 

It  was  most  fitting  that  a  graduate  of  one  of 
the  oldest  colleges  in  the  country  should  have 
opened  the  first  public  school  in  California.  Thomas 
Douglas,  a  graduate  of  Yale  College,  began  a  public 
school  in  San  Francisco  on  the  3d  day  of  April, 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  231 

1848.  It  was  a  good  beginning.  But  when  a  few 
months  later  nearly  the  whole  population  .  had 
drifted  away  to  the  mines,  Douglas  was  left  high 
and  dry  on  the  sand  hills. 

All  true  scholarship  has  breadth  and  catholicity. 
Let  not  ours  be  impeached  by  ignoring  what  others 
have  done  in  the  domain  of  letters  and  science. 
The  fact  is  none  the  less  significant,  that  the  public 
school,  with  its  canvas  roof,  and  three  scholars, 
in  1849,  is  crowned  by  the  University  of  California 
to-day. 

Possibly,  the  pioneer  educators  builded  better 
than  they  knew.  Douglas,  the  master  of  arts  of 
Yale,  setting  the  first  stakes  in  the  sand  hills — 
Marvin,  the  first  State  Superintendent  of  Public 
Schools,  who,  having  made  a  campaign  against  the 
Indians,  turned  over  his  emoluments  to  the  school 
fund — Brayton,  who  conducted  for  years  the  most 
successful  preparatory  school  in  the  State,  a  brave, 
patient  and  lovable  man,  whose  life  went  out  all 
too  soon  in  the  midst  of  his  noble  work — Durant, 
who,  beginning  at  the  foundations,  saw  the  University 
with  the  clear  vision  of  a  prophet,  and  lived  to 
see  the  fruition  of  his  hopes — the  gentle  and 


232  LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

profound  scholar,  the  dignified  president,  the  wise 
and  firm  civil  magistrate,  who,  in  the  richness  of  his 
intellect,  the  purity  of  his  soul,  and  the  steadfastness 
of  his  friendship,  was  more  than  president,  magistrate, 
or  scholar.  Tompkins,  as  a  legislator  and  as  regent, 
worked  with  unflagging  zeal  for  the  University,  and 
fitly  crowned  that  work  by  endowing,  out  of  his 
moderate  fortune,  the  first  professorship.  When  he 
had  made  his  last  public  speech  in  behalf  of  the 
institution  for  which  he  had  wrought  so  well,  it 
remained  for  him  to  enter  into  the  sacred  guild  of 
those  pioneers  who  had  gone  a  little  before.  Gilman, 
the  second  president,  whose  organizing  mind  grasped 
every  detail  of  the  University,  who  wrought  effectively 
for  it  by  day,  and  planned  wisely  for  it  by  night — a 
man  of  rare  executive  ability,  who  seemed  half 
unconscious  of  his  own  power  to  influence  men  in 
behalf  of  the  great  interests  for  which  he  wrought. 
Let  it  be  said  of  him  that  he  bore  himself  in  his 
high  office  with  a  patience  and  dignity  befitting 
the  Christian  gentleman  and  accomplished  scholar. 
Such  a  man  rarely  misses  his  place,  because  he  is 
a  citizen  of  the  world  of  letters.  It  is  here  for 
a  few  years,  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  country 


LITERATURE  AND   ART.  233 

for  more.  But  here  or  there,  I  think  he  will  never 
need  a  better  testimonial  than  that  which  his  work 
will  offer. 

Some  good  work  has  also  been  done  in  a 
scientific  way.  The  geological  survey  of  this  State 
was  arrested  by  the  impatience  of  the  people  for 
immediate  results.  The  topographical  survey  alone, 
than  which  nothing  better  has  ever  been  done  in 
this  country,  was  more  than  an  equivalent  for  the 
entire  outlay.  There  will  come  a  time  when  the 
practical  value  of  such  an  enterprise  will  be  better 
understood.  The  physical  problems  in  a  single 
State  like  California  could  not  be  solved  in  half  a 
century.  Was  it  well  to  ask  a  scientific  commission 
to  solve  them,  and  publish  the  results  in  a  few 
months  ? 

The  public  journal,  as  a  factor  in  education,  is 
here,  as  elsewhere,  the  outgrowth  of  our  civilization. 
It  embodies  the  passions,  caprices  and  enterprises 
of  the  community.  In  its  best  estate  it  gives  the 
history  of  the  world  for  one  day.  In  its  poorest 
estate  it  is  content  with  a  patent  outside,  th.e  puffing 
of  some  mountebank,  and  the  abuse  of  rivals. 
But  at  the  close  of  this  quarter  century,  the  only 


234  LITERATURE  AND   ART. 

complete  history  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  this 
commonwealth  is  that  which  the  newspapers  contain. 
I  have  seen  an  artist  sketch  an  accurate  likeness 
of  his  friend  on  his  thumb-nail.  But  the  modern 
newspaper  every  day  sketches  the  likeness,  the  pulse, 
and  the  throbbing  heart  of  the  civilized  world. 

Just  as  the  ideal  state  is  something  far  in 
advance  of  the  actual,  so  the  ideal  newspaper  is 
something  far  better  than  exists  on  this  side  of 
the  continent.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  it  is  largely  the 
product  of  steamships,  railroads  and  telegraphs. 
But  the  journal  of  the  future  will,  after  all,  be  very 
much  what  the  community  makes  it.  It  is  the  child 
of  civilization,  going  forward  with  the  community 
to  a  better  condition,  or  going  backward  with  it 
to  coarseness  and  barbarism.  The  best  newspaper 
a  hundred  years  ago  was  a  poor  affair.  A  hundred 
years  hence,  the  journal  of  to-day  will  probably  be 
viewed  with  as  much  interest  for  what  it  lacks,  as 
for  what  it  contains. 

Our  ideal  newspaper  will  pander  to  no  mean 
prejudices.  It  will  be  no  generator  of  slang  phrases. 
It  will  not  murder  honest  English.  It  will  have 
ripe  and  well-digested  opinions.  It  will  not  truckle 


LITERATURE  AND   ART.  235 

to  base  men.  It  will  not  sneer  at  religion.  It 
will  keep  its  editorial  columns  above  all  just 
suspicion  of  purchase.  It  will  leave  garbage  in 
the  gutter.  It  will  assail  no  man  unjustly,  nor  fear 
to  defend  any  man  or  interest  because  he  or  it 
may  be  obscure  or  unpopular.  No  good  citizen  will 
fear  the  honest  journal  of  the  future,  and  no  bad 
man  will  like  it. 

Observe  how  the  outer  bark  of  the  madrono  and 
eucalyptus,  with  the  coming  of  every  Summer,  bursts, 
rolls  up,  and  falls  to  the  ground  as  so  much  rubbish. 
That  is  a  sign  of  expanding  life.  A  great  deal  of 
newspaper  rubbish  to-day  is  a  sign  of  growth.  The 
outer  rind  and  husk  of  things  fall  to  the  ground 
by  that  vital  force  which  is  continually  developing 
a  larger  and  nobler  life  in  the  community.  No 
man  will  hereafter  go  to  the  head  of  this  profession 
without  fair  scholarship,  a  wide  range  of  observation, 
a  large  capacity,  to  deal  in  a  general  way  with  human 
affairs,  and  that  keen  insight  which  catches  the  spirit 
and  essence  of  this  on-going  life.  Most  difficult  of 
all  is  a  certain  power  of  statement  which  no  school 
can  teach,  and  without  which  the  highest  plane  of 
the  journalist  cannot  be  reached.  Your  long  story 


236  LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

will  not  be  heard.  The  world  is  waiting  for  the 
man  of  condensation.  Tell  it  in  few  words.  If  one 
can  master  this  high  eclecticism  of  thought  and 
statement,  I  know  of  no  more  promising  field  for 
young  men  to-day  than  journalism.  If  one  cannot, 
the  potato  field,  in  a  season  of  blight,  is  quite  as 
promising. 

Without  this  broader  culture  for  the  journalist, 
there  will  be  great  danger  that  the  exigencies  of 
his  work  will  make  him  a  superficial  man.  The 
habit  will  grow  upon  him  of  touching  merely  the 
surface  of  things.  He  will  come  to  think  that,  as 
his  journal  is  only  for  the  day,  his  errors  are  for 
the  day  also.  The  habit  of  careful  investigation 
and  exactness  of  thought  and  statement,  will  be 
discarded  for  random  guesses  and  the  temporary 
expedients  of  the  hour.  Nothing  but  the  balancing 
influence  of  generous  culture  will  arrest  this  lapsing 
tendency.  It  will  be  disclosed  in  platitudes  and 
commonplaces ;  in  writing  against  space,  and  in 
that  dreadful  amplitude  which  buries  a  thought  under 
a  mountain  of  verbiage. 

One  cannot  fail  to  note  that  the  newspaper  has 
been  gradually  encroaching  on  the  domain  of 


LITERATURE  AND   ART.  237 

literature.  It  has  absorbed  monthly  magazines  or 
forced  publishers  to  resort  to  illustrations — to  a  sort 
of  picture-book  literature  for  grown-up  children. 
It  has  driven  the  lumbering  quarterlies  into  smaller 
fields  and  diminished  their  relative  importance.  The 
average  citizen  craves  the  news  from  a  journal 
having  the  very  dew  of  the  morning  and  of  the 
evening  upon  it.  It  must  come  to  him  damp  and 
limp,  bringing  whatever  is  best  at  the  smallest 
possible  cost.  The  newspaper  is  the  herald  of  the 
new  era.  Its  errand  must  be  swift,  its  statements 
compact,  and  its  thought  eclectic  and  comprehensive. 
Three  thousand  years  ago,  one  of  the  grand  old 
prophets  spoke  mysteriously  of  the  "living  spirit 
in  the  wheels."  Was  it  other  than  the  modern 
newspaper  thrown  off  by  the  pulsing  of  the  great 
cylinder  press?  But  observe  that  through  yonder 
Golden  Gate,  which  the  sun  and  the  stars  and  the 
lamps  of  men  glorify  day  and  night,  the  devil-fish 
comes  sailing  up,  and  is  no  whit  concerned  whether 
his  accursed  tentacula  close  around  saint  or  sinner. 
Is  it  not  the  fittest  symbol  of  a  public  journal 
conducted  by  ignorant  and  unscrupulous  men? 
Rather  would  you  not  choose,  as  a  more  fitting 


238  LITERATURE  AND   ART. 

symbol  of  the  ideal  journal,  one  of  the  small 
globules  of  quicksilver  which  you  shall  find  on  any 
of  these  encircling  hills,  so  powerless  to  draw  to 
it  an  atom  of  filth  or  rubbish,  but  ever  attracting 
the  smallest  particle  of  incorruptible  silver  and  gold  ? 
It  can  hardly  have  escaped  notice  that  California, 
during  this  quarter-century,  has  produced  more 
humorists,  and  more  of  that  literature  which  is 
essentially  humorous,  than  all  the  rest  of  the  country. 
It  may  be  difficult  to  trace  to  any  outward  sources 
the  inspiration  of  so  much  wit.  Does  it  lie  in  the 
odd  contrasts  and  strange  situations  which  so  often 
confront  the  observer  here  ?  Nor  has  this  facetious- 
ness  depended  at  all  for  its  development  upon  any 
degree  of  prosperity.  In  fact,  the  boldest  and  bravest 
challenge  which  has  ever  been  given  to  adverse 
fortune  here,  has  been  by  the  gentle  humorists  who 
have  suffered  from  her  slings  and  arrows.  It  is  said  : 
"Cervantes  smiled  Spain's  chivalry  away."  But  these 
modern  satirists  made  faces  at  bad  fortune;  they 
lampooned  her  and  defied  her  to  do  her  utmost. 
The  more  miserable  they  ought  to  have  been,  the 
happier  they  were.  They  found  a  grotesque  and 
comic  side  to  the  most  sober  facts.  They  were 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  239 

facetious  when  there  was  small  stock  in  the  larder 
and  smaller  credit  at  the  banker's.  They  smiled 
at  the  very  grimness  of  evil  fortune  until  she  fled, 
and,  in  doing  this,  they  half-unconsciously  tickled 
the  midriff  of  the  world.  A  ripple  of  laughter  ran 
over  the  surface  of  society.  It  sometimes  made  slow 
progress  when  it  here  and  there  met  a  mountain  of 
obtuseness.  But  wit  is  wit ;  and  what  difference 
does  it  make  if,  failing  to  see  the  point,  some  people 
laugh  next  year  instead  of  this  ?  I  will  not  be 
distressed  because  my  friend  does  not,  to  this  day, 
see  how  the  immortal  "Squibob"  conquered  his 
adversary  at  San  Diego  by  falling  underneath  him 
and  inserting  his  nose  between  his  teeth.  Nor 
does  it  greatly  concern  me  that  he  does  not  assent 
to  the  proposition  that  John  Phoenix,  having  made 
a  national  reputation  by  editing  the  San  Diego 
Herald  for  one  week,  was  the  greatest  journalist 
of  modern  times.  If  reputation  is  the  measure  of 
greatness,  Phoenix  is  to  this  day  without  a  peer. 
He  made  the  very  desert  sparkle  with  his  wit.  He 
was  a  humorous  comet,  shooting  across  the  dull 
horizon  of  pioneer  life.  Men  looked  up  and 
wondered  whence  it  came  and  whither  it  had  gone. 


240  LITERATURE  AND   ART. 

Possibly,  there  is  something  favorable  to  the  play 
of  humor  in  a  greater  freedom  from  conventional 
limitations.  If  one  grows  into  this  larger  liberty, 
or  is  translated  into  it,  a  flavor  of  freshness  comes 
to  pervade  all  the  intellectual  life.  A  certain 
spontaneity  of  expression,  a  spring,  a  rioting  song 
of  gladness,  are  some  of  the  signs  of  this  more 
abounding  life.  In  homely  phrase,  we  say  there 
is  a  flavor  of  the  soil  about  it.  It  might,  therefore, 
have  been  necessary  that  Mark  Twain  should  sleep 
on  this  soil,  and  should  have  a  wide  range  of  pioneer 
experiences,  before  he  could  become  the  prince  of 
grotesque  humorists.  He  got  up  suddenly  from  the 
very  soil  which  in  its  secret  laboratory  colors  the 
olive  and  the  orange,  and  began  to  make  the  world 
laugh.  With  a  keen  sense  of  the  symmetry  and 
harmony  of  things,  he  had  a  keener  perception  of  all 
the  shams  and  ridiculous  aspects  of  life.  His 
pungent  gospel  of  humor  is  as  sanitary  as  a  gentle 
trade-wind.  He  knew  a  better  secret  than  the  old 
alchemists.  Every  time  he  made  the  world  laugh  he 
put  a  thousand  ducats  into  his  pocket.  But  never 
until  he  had  slept  in  his  blankets,  had  been  robbed 
on  the  "  Divide,"  and  had  learned  the  delicate 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  241 

cookery  of  a  miner's  cabin,  could  he  do  these  things. 
But  now  he  cannot  even  weep  at  the  tomb  of  his 
ancestor,  Adam,  without  moving  the  risibles  of  half 
the  world.  He  has  also  a  finer  touch  and  flavor,  not 
of  the  rankest  soil,  but  of  that  which  gives  the 
aroma  and  delicate  bouquet  to  the  rarest  mountain 
side  vintage.  When  this  man  had  tried  his  wit  on 
a  Californian  audience  and  had  won  an  approving 
nod,  he  had  an  endorsement  that  was  good  in  any 
part  of  the  English-speaking  world. 

Of  a  more  subtile  wit  and  a  finer  grain  was 
Harte,  who  did  his  best  work  as  a  humorist  in 
California.  All  his  earlier  triumphs  were  won 
here.  His  subsequent  indorsement  in  a  wider 
field  was  only  an  affirmation  of  this  earlier  public 
judgment. 

Sometimes  in  the  thicket  one  may  come  upon  a 
wild  mocking  bird  which  is  running  up  the  gamut 
of  its  riotous  burlesque  upon  the  song  of  every 
other  bird,  and  the  sound  of  every  living  thing  in 
the  forest.  But  when  all  this  is  done,  that  mocking 
bird  will  sometimes  give  out  a  song  which  none 
other  can  match  with  its  melody.  As  much  as  this, 
and  more,  lay  within  the  range  of  this  poet-satirist. 


242  LITERATURE  AND   ART. 

His  mocking  had,  however,  a  deep  and  salient 
meaning  in  it.  When  Truthful  James  rises  to 
explain  in  what  respect  Ah  Sin  is  peculiar,  he  has 
a  higher  purpose  than  merely  _  to  show  the  over 
reaching  cunning  of  this  bronzed  heathen, 

"  With  a  smile  that  was  child-like  and  bland." 
So  long  as  Ah  Sin  and  his  race  could  be  plucked  and 
despoiled  at  will,  he  provoked  no  antagonisms.     But 
when  he  overmatched  the  sharpness  of  his  spoilers, 
we  have  this  tale,  with  its  moral : 

"Then  I  looked  up  at  Nye  ; 
And  he  gazed  upon  me  ; 
And  he  rose  with  a  sigh, 

And  said,    '  Can  this  be  ? 
We  are  ruined  by  Chinese  cheap  labor ! ' 
And  he  went  for  that  heathen  Chinee." 

Every  demagogue  in  the  State,  who  had  rung  the 
changes  on  the  evils  of  cheap  labor,  felt  the  thrust ; 
and  it  is  doubtful  if  one  of  them  has  forgiven  Harte 
to  this  day. 

The  dogmatism   and  intolerant  assumption  which 
sometimes  become  rampant  in  scientific  societies,  is 
thus  punctured  by  Truthful  James,  in  his  description 
of  "  The  Society  upon  the  Stanislaus  :  " 
"  But  first  I  would  remark  that  it  is  not  a  proper  plan 

For  any  scientific  gent  to  whale  his  fellow-man, 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  243 

And  if   a  member  don't  agree  with  his  peculiar  whim, 
To  lay  for  that  same  member  for  to  'put  a  head'  on  him." 

When  Jones  undertook  to  prove  that  certain  fossil 
bones  were  from  one  of  his  lost  mules,  then  the 
trouble  began : 

"  Now  I  hold  it  is  not  decent  for  any  scientific  gent 
To  say  another  is  an  ass — at  least  to  all  intent ; 
Nor  should  the  individual  who  happens  to  be  meant, 
Reply  by  heaving  rocks  at  him,  to  any  great  extent. 

"Then  Abner  Dean  of  Angel's  raised  a  point  of  order,  when 
A  chunck  of  old  red  sandstone  took  him  in  the  abdomen, 
And  he  smiled  a  sickly  smile,  and  curled  up  on  the  floor, 
And  the  subsequent  proceedings  interested  him  no  more. 

"  For  in  less   time  than  I  write  it  every  member  did  engage 
In  a  warfare  with  the  remnants  of  the  paleozoic  age  ; 
And  the  way  they  heaved  those  fossils   in   their  anger  was 

a  sin, 
Till    the    skull    of    an    old    mammoth  caved    the   head    of 

Thompson    in." 

When  the  supposed  pliocene  skull,  found  in 
Calaveras  County,  had  developed  a  good  deal  of 
scientific  quackery,  Harte,  in  his  "  Geological 
Address,"  makes  the  skull  declare  that  it  belonged 
to  Joe  Bowers,  of  Missouri,  who  had  fallen  down 
a  shaft.  For  six  months  thereafter  no  theorist  was 
able  to  discuss  the  character  of  that  fossil  with  a 
sober  countenance.  No  Damascus  blade  ever  cut 


244  LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

with  keener  stroke  than  did  the  blade  of  this  satirist, 
even  when  it  was  hidden  in  a  madrigal  or  concealed 
in  some  polished  sentence  of  prose. 

As  a  humorist,  he  appreciated  humor  in  others. 
When  Dickens  died,  not  another  man  in  all  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land  contributed  so  tender 
and  beautiful  a  tribute  to  his  memory  as  did  Harte 
in  his  poem  of  "  Dicken's  in  Camp."  The  rude 
miners  around  the  camp-fire  drop  their  cards  as 
one  of  them  draws  forth  a  book : 

"  And  then,  while  round  them  shadows  gathered  faster, 

And  as  the  fire-light  fell, 
He  read  aloud  the  book  wherein  the  master 
Had  writ  of   'Little  Nell.' 

"  Perhaps  'twas  boyish  fancy — for  the  reader 

Was  youngest  of  them  all — 
But,  as  he  read,  from  clustering  pine  and  cedar 
A  silence  seemed  to  fall. 

"  The  fir-trees,  gathering  closer  in  the  shadows, 

Listened  in  every  spray, 

While  the  whole  camp  with   '  Nell '  on  English  meadows 
Wandered  and  lost  their  way. 


"  Lost  is  that  camp,  and  wasted  all  its  fire, 

And  he  who  wrought  that  spell — 
Ah  !  towering  pine  and  stately  Kentish  spire, 
Ye  have  one  tale  to  tell  ! 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  245 

"  Lost  is  that  camp,  but  let  its  fragrant  story 

Blend  with  the  breath  that  thrills 
With  hop-vines'  incense  all  the  pensive  glory, 
That  fills  the  Kentish  hills. 

"  And  on  that  grave  where  English  oak,  and  holly, 

And  laurel  wreaths  entwine, 
Deem  it  not  all  a  too-presumptuous  folly — 
This  spray  of  western  pine  ?" 

It  was  left  to  this  shy  man,  who  came  forth 
from  the  very  wastes  of  this  far-off  wilderness,  to 
lay  upon  the  bier  of  the  dead  humorist  as  fragrant 
an  offering  as  any  mortal  fellowship  could  suggest. 
It  was  a  song  in  a  different  key — as  if  one  having 
entered  into  the  very  life  of  the  great  novelist,  had 
also  for  a  moment  entered  into  his  death. 

The  wit  and  the  poetry  which  ripen  here  are 
under  the  same  sun  which  ripens  the  pomegranate 
and  the  citron.  The  grain  and  texture  have  always 
been  better  than  that  suggested  by  the  coarser 
materialism  without.  It  is  little  to  him  who  is 
cutting  his  marble  to  the  divinest  form,  that  the 
whole  city  reeks  with  grime  and  smoke,  and  all  its 
outlines  are  misshapen  and  ugly.  It  is  little  to 
poet  or  painter  that  sometimes  the  earth  has  only 
a  single  tint  of  gray,  since  he  may  also  see  in 


246  LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

contrast,  what  a  transfigured  glory  there  may  be  on 
mountain  and  on  sea. 

There  are  not  at  any  time  in  this  dull  world  so 
many  genuine  humorists  as  one  may  count  on  his 
fingers.  For  lack  of  some  healthy  laughter  the 
world  is  going  to  the  bad.  It  welcomes  the  gentle 
missionary  of  humor,  and  for  lack  of  him  it  often 
accepts  those  dreary  counterfeits  who  commit  assault 
and  battery  upon  our  mother-tongue.  As  in  olden 
time  the  prophets  were  sometimes  stoned  in  their 
own  country,  so  in  modern  times  one  cannot  tell 
whether  the  poet-prophet  who  comes  up  from  the 
wilderness,  will  fare  better  or  worse.  Woe  to  him 
if  the  people  cannot  interpret  him,  or  are  piqued 
at  his  coming.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  when  Harte 
had  brought  forth  his  first  book  with  the  modest 
title  of  Outcroppings,  it  was  pelted  from  one  end  of 
the  State  to  the  other.  It  did  not  contain  a  poem 
of  his  own.  But  it  did  contain  samples  of  the  best 
poetry,  other  than  his  own,  which  had  been  produced 
in  California.  His  critics,  catching  the  suggestion  of 
the  title,  flung  at  him  porphyry,  granite,  and  barren 
quartz,  but  never  a  rock  containing  a  grain  of  gold. 
He  might  have  put  a  torpedo  into  a  couple  of  stanzas 


L1TERRTURE  AND   ART.  247 

and  extinguished  them  all.  But  he  saw  the  humorous 
side  of  the  assault,  and  enjoyed  it  with  a  keener  zest 
than  any  of  his  assailants. 

None  of  us  would  be  comfortable  with  only  some 
pungent  sauce  for  dinner.  But  when  a  dreadful 
staleness  overtakes  the  world,  it  is  ready  to  cry  out, 
"  More  sauce  !"  Whoever  comes,  therefore,  bringing 
with  him  salt  and  seasoning,  and  whatever  else  gives 
a  keener  zest  to  life,  never  comes  amiss.  Sooner 
or  later  we  shall  know  him.  He  will  come  very  near 
to  us  in  his  books,  and  by  that  subtile  law  of  com 
munion  which,  through  the  brightest  and  noblest 
utterances,  makes  all  the  better  world  akin. 

After  we  have  seen  the  trick  of  the  magician,  we 
do  not  care  to  know  him  any  more.  But  the 
magician  of  wit  works  by  an  enchantment  that  we 
can  never  despise.  His  spell  is  wrought  with  such 
gifts  as  are  only  given  from  the  very  heavens  to 
here  and  there  one.  It  is  not  the  mythical  Puck 
who  is  to  put  a  girdle  round  the  world,  but  the  man 
of  genius,  whose  thought  is  luminous  with  the  light 
of  all  ages.  So  Shakspeare  clasps  the  world,  and 
Dickens  belts  it,  and  the  men  of  wit  and  genius 
furnish  each  a  golden  thread  which  girds  it  about. 


248  LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

The  book  of  humor  is  the  heart's  ease.  In  every 
library  it  is  dog-eared,  because  it  has  in  it  some 
surcease  for  the  secret  ills  of  life.  If  a  million 
souls  have  been  made  happier  for  an  hour  through 
the  fictions  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  what  is  the  sum  of 
good  thus  wrought?  What  lesser  good  have  they 
wrought  who  have  come  in  later  times  to  lighten  the 
dead  weight  of  our  overweighted  lives  ? 

Do  not  despise  the  evangel  of  humor  because  he 
comes  unlike  one  of  old,  wearing  a  girdle  of  camel's 
hair,  and  eating  his  locusts  and  wild  honey.  Bear 
with  him  if  he  comes  in  flaming  neck-tie  and 
flamingo  vestments,  hirsute  and  robust.  You  shall 
know  by  his  wit  that  he  is  no  charlatan ;  but  you 
cannot  tell  it  by  his  raiment,  nor  his  bill  of  fare. 
It  cannot  be  shown  that  the  wit  of  Diogenes  was 
any  better  for  his  living  in  a  tub.  It  is  not  probable 
that  a  dish  of  water-cress  would  inspire  a  better 
humor  than  a  flagon  of  wine  and  a  saddle  of  venison. 
I  would  rather  look  for  your  modern  humorist  in  the 
top  story  of  the  crowded  and  garish  hostlery  ;  because 
if  he  is  after  game,  he  will  be  sure  .to  find  it  there. 

The  exacting  conditions  of  pioneer  life  are  not 
favorable,  to  authorship.  If  during  this  quarter  of 


LITERATURE  AND   ART.  249 

a  century  not  a  book  had  been  written  in  California, 
we  might  plead  in  mitigation  the  overshadowing 
materialism  which,  while  coarsely  wrestling  for  the 
gains  of  a  day,  finds  no  place  for  that  repose  which 
favors  culture  and  is  fruitful  of  books.  But  over  the 
arid  plains,  in  the  heat  and  dust  of  the  long  summer, 
one  may  trace  the  belt  of  green  which  the  mountain 
stream  carries  sheer  down  to  the  sea.  So  there  have 
been  many  thoughtful  men  and  women  who  have 
freshened  and  somewhat  redeemed  these  intellectual 
wastes.  They  have  written  more  books  in  this 
quarter  of  a  century  than  have  been  written  in  all 
the  other  States  west  of  the  Mississippi  River.  The 
publication  of  some  of  these  books  has  cost  nearly 
their  weight  in  gold.  During  the  period  of  twenty- 
five  years,  more  than  90  volumes  have  been  written 
by  persons  living  at  the  time  in  this  State. 

Many  of  these  books  have  had  but  a  local 
circulation,  and  are  now  almost  forgotten.  Some 
have  gained  more  than  a  national  reputation.  I 
enumerate  among  these  Halleck's  International  Law ; 
Mountaineering,  by  Clarence  King;  Marine  Mammals 
of  the  Northwestern  Coast  of  North  America,  by 
Captain  Scammon  ;  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp,  by 


250  LITERATURE  AND   ART. 

Bret  Harte ;  and  Native  Races,  by  Hubert  H.  Ban 
croft.  Another  work  just  missed  a  more  than 
national  recognition.  Grayson,  the  self-taught  and 
heroic  naturalist,  traversed  the  forests  and  swamps 
of  Mexico,  stopping  neither  for  morass  nor  jungle, 
until  he  had  drawn  and  painted  to  life  nearly  two 
hundred  of  the  rarest  birds  of  that  country.  His 
work,  which  is  still  in  sheets  and  manuscript,  was 
probably  at  the  cost  of  his  life.  But,  besides  the 
works  of  Audubon  and  Wilson,  I  know  of  nothing 
better  in  its  way  by  any  naturalist,  living  or  dead. 

No  one  has  sought  to  live  here  exclusively  by 
authorship.  It  has  only  been  the  incidental  occu^ 
pation  of  those  persons  who  have  written  out  of  the 
fullness  of  their  own  lives.  If  they  heard  no 
mysterious  voice  saying  unto  them,  "Write  !  "—the 
great  mountains  encamped  about  like  sleeping  drome 
daries,  the  valleys  filled  with  the  aroma  of  a  royal 
fruitage,  the  serene  sky,  and  the  rythm  of  the  great 
sea,  all  make  audible  signs  to  write.  They  have 
written  out  of  a  fresh  new  life. 

In  the  streets  of  Herculaneum  you  may  see  the 
ruts  made  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago.  The 
grooves  of  society  are  often  narrow  and  rigid  with 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  251 

the  fixedness  of  centuries.  It  may  be  better,  by  way 
of  change,  to  propel  a  velocipede  on  a  fresh  track 
than  to  run  four  gilded  wheels  in  the  dead  grooves 
which  have  been  cut  by  the  attrition  of  ages.  After 
one  has  known  the  satiety  which  comes  from  the 
mild  gabble  of  society,  there  is  a  wonderful  freshness 
in  a  war-whoop  uttered  in  the  depths  of  the 
wilderness  I 

It  is  this  large  acquaintance  with  nature — this 
lying  down  with  the  mountains  until  one  is  taken 
into  their  confidence — a  grim  fellowship  with  untamed 
savageness — that  may  give  a  new  vitality,  and  enlarge 
the  horizon  of  intellectual  life.  Whence  comes  this 
man  with  his  new  poetry,  which  confounds  the  critics? 
and  that  man  with  his  subtile  wit  borrowed  from  no 
school  ?  I  pray  you  note  that  for  many  a  day  his 
carpet  hath  been  the  spicula  of  pine,  and  his  atmos 
phere  hath  been  perfumed  by  the  fir-tree.  He  has 
seen  the  mountains  clad  in  beatific  raiment  of  white, 
and  their  "sacristy  set  round  with  stars."  He  will 
never  go  so  far  that  he  will  not  come  back  to  sing 
and  talk  of  these,  his  earliest  and  divinest  loves.  So 
Miller  sings  of  "The  Sierra,"  of  "Arizona,"  of  "The 
Ship  in  the  Desert."  And  Harte  comes  back  again 


252  LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

to  his  miner's  camp,  and  to  the  larger  liberty  of  the 
mountains.  And  there  fell  on  Starr  King  a  grander 
inspiration  after  he  had  seen  the  white  banners 
of  the  snow-storm  floating  from  the  battlements  of 
Yosemite. 

We  have  brought  forth  nothing  out  of  our  poverty, 
but  rather  out  of  an  affluence  which  could  not  be 
wholly  restrained.  As  a  gardener  clips  his  choicest 
shrubs,  casting  the  tangled  riotousness  of  bud  and 
blossom  over  the  wall,  so  there  are  many  here  who 
have  only  trimmed  a  little  what  they  have  planted  in 
their  own  gardens  of  poetry  and  fiction. 

The  little  that  has  been  done  here  in  art  is  rather  a 
sign  of  better  things  to  come.  Art  must  not  only 
have  inspiration,  but  it  needs  wealth  and  the  society 
of  a  ripe  community  for  its  best  estate.  It  is  possible 
to  paint  for  immortality  in  a  garret.  But  a  great  deal 
of  work  done  there  has  gone  to  the  lumber-room. 
Not  only  must  there  be  the  fostering  spirit  of  wealth 
and  letters,  but  art  also  needs  a  picturesque  world 
without — the  grand  estate  of  mountains  and  valleys, 
atmospheres,  tones,  lights,  shadows — and  if  there  be 
a  picturesque  people,  we  might  look  for  a  new  school 
of  art,  and  even  famous  painters.  Where  a  poet  can 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  253 

be  inspired,  there  look  also  for  the  poetry  which  is 
put  on  canvas. 

In  one  respect  our  modern  civilization  is  nearly 
fatal  to  art.  Philip  Hamerton  says  that  "a  noble 
artist  will  gladly  paint  a  peasant  driving  a  yoke  of 
oxen ;  but  not  a  commercial  traveler  in  his  gig. 
....  Men  and  women  have  a  fatal  liberty  which 
mountains  have  not.  They  have  the  liberty  of 
spoiling  themselves,  of  making  themselves  ugly,  and 
mean,  and  ridiculous.  A  mountain  cannot  dress  in 
bad  taste,  neither  is  it  capable  of  degrading  itself 
by  vice.  Noble  human  life  in  a  great  and  earnest 
age  is  better  artistic  material  than  wild  nature ;  but 
human  life  is  an  age  like  ours  is  not." 

If  a  great  artist  were  asked  to  paint  a  fashionable 
woman  in  the  prevailing  stringent  costume,  do  not 
blame  him  if  he  faints  away.  There  will  never  get 
into  a  really  great  painting  any  of  the  stiff  and  conr 
strained  costumes  of  our  time.  Observe  that  the 
sculptor  rarely  cuts  the  statute  of  a  modern  statesman 
without  the  accessories  of  some  flowing  and  graceful 
attire.  He  cannot  sculpture  a  modern  dress-suit 
without  feeling  that  he  has  offered  an  affront  to  art. 

But   in   spite   of  our  civilization    there    is   a   great 


254  LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

deal  that  is  picturesque  among  the  people — the  Parsee, 
Mohammedan,  Malay,  and  Mongol,  whom  one  may 
sometimes  meet  on  the  same  street — the  red  shirt 
of  the  Italian  fisherman,  and  the  lateen  sail  which 
sends  his  boat  flying  over  the  water.  The  very 
distresses  and  distraints  of  men  here  have  made 
them  picturesque.  I  have  seen  a  valedictorian  of  a 
leading  college  deep  down  in  a  gravel  mine,  directing 
his  hydraulic  pipe  against  the  bank.  Clad  in  a  gray 
shirt  and  slouch-hat,  he  was  a  far  better  subject 
for  a  painter  than  on  the  day  he  took  his  degree. 
The  native  Californian  on  horseback,  with  poncho, 
sombrero,  and  leggings,  is  a  good  subject  for  the 
canvas,  as  well  as  the  quaint  old  church  where  he 
worships,  so  rich  in  its  very  ruins.  Moreover,  the 
whole  physical  aspect  of  the  country  is  wonderfully 
picturesque.  The  palm  tree  lifting  up  its  fronded 
head  in  the  desert,  the  great  fir  tree  set  against  the 
ineffable  azure  of  the  heavens,  the  vine-clad  hills, 
the  serrated  mountains  which  the  frosts  have 
canonized  with  their  sealed  and  unsealed  fountains, 
and  all  the  gold  and  purple  which  touch  the  hills  at 
even-tide — these  are  the  rich  ministries  of  nature. 
It  may  take  art  a  thousand  years  to  ripen  even  here. 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  255 

For  how  many  years  had  the  long  procession  of 
painters  come  and  gone  before  Raphael  and  Michael 
Angelo  appeared  ? 

Our  young  art  school  will  some  day  have  its 
treasures ;  and  there  will  be  hung  on  these  walls  the 
portraits  of  other  men  whose  culture  and  influence 
will  be  worth  more  than  all  the  gold  of  the  mountains. 
Let  the  artist  set  up  his  easel  and  write  his  silent 
poem  upon  the  canvas.  Welcome  all  influences 
which  soften  this  hard  and  barren  materialism. 
Before  the  mountains  were  unvexed  by  the  miner's 
drill  the  land  itself  was  a  poem  and  a  picture.  One 
day  the  turbid  streams  will  turn  to  crystal  again,  and 
the  only  miner  will  be  the  living  glacier  sitting  on  its 
white  throne  of  judgment  and  grinding  the  very 
mountains  to  powder.  Fortunate  they  who  can  catch 
this  wealth  of  inspiration.  These  are  the  ministers 
and  prophets  whose  larger  and  finer  interpretation 
of  nature  are  part  of  the  treasures  of  the  new 
commonwealth. 


DATE  DUE 


3  2106  00206  2393 


